One thing I’m learning during this
time has to do with LOVE.
When I came to Chile to do my DTS,
my personal motive was to find out if a person could really be “in love with
God.” I often heard people say things like that, and couldn’t really believe
it. It wasn’t my experience, and I was
suspicious of that churchy lingo.
In March, after an adventure of
experiences travelling as newlyweds, Julio and I were finally two days’ journey
from the YWAM base. I wrote in my
journal, speaking to God, “You’re bringing me back to Pichilemu, the place
where I fell more in love with You.” To the place where I began to know Him
more, and to believe that there will always be more of God for our lives. Yes, I now believe that a person actually can
be in love with God, and that there will be a process of growing together in
that love, just as courtship and marital love goes through stages.
This time, in these almost-three
months here, again the subject is love.
I didn’t know it would be when I arrived. I believed the main subject to be “healing
whatever is wounded inside me that makes me react poorly” or something along
those lines. And yes, that has been part
of it, but just in the last few weeks of this school (dates we hadn’t planned
to be here still) I’m beginning to grasp something new, something that my
spirit longs for even though it’s hard to receive it.
We are sometimes taught in the
Church that we are “just channels of God’s love.” I realized that I’m living my life hoping to
get “just enough” of God’s love to be able to pass it on and make a difference
in someone else’s life. In my case,
enough of God’s love to be able to love the needy children he gives me to care
for. Enough of God’s love to cover over
my shortcomings. Enough of God’s love to
make a difference in their lives. Enough
of God’s love to make them want it for themselves. Enough of God’s love… enough… just enough.
In a teaching on the Law and Grace,
a base leader here stated that God loves us because we need Him. He went on to talk about how parents act when
their baby is learning to walk: how excited and encouraging they are; how they
run out to announce to others “my daughter is walking!” disregarding the fact
that after one step, she has again fallen.
While thinking about that, I started
sketching a baby in a diaper, much before the walking phase arrives. “God created us to be dependent on Him and
interdependent with others,” they have taught us here. God created us to be like babies with Him;
totally dependent. And even as we grow
and learn, little by little, to “walk in the Spirit” and to “eat solid
spiritual food,” we the dependency continues.
Around this smiling little baby, I
drew two big arms, encircling her, holding her up. The baby was looking up into the face of the
one holding her. There was nothing that
baby could offer, and her holder loved her.
Another day, while praying in class,
the Spirit brought the two concepts crashing together:
Which is it? Just enough love to give to others? Or loved extravagantly because I’m needy?
So I’m taking off the idea that my
usefulness to God is the reason He loves me.
And I’m trying on the new skin of
being just as important for God as everyone else. The idea that I matter as much as the
neglected and abandoned children He’s called me to; that I’m just as much the
object of His love as others are. That
His love is completely directed at ME, regardless of others waiting or needing
His love.
The interesting thing is, of course,
that His love is also completely directed at Julio, and at each of the children
I used to take care of, and at the man on the corner, and at the college
professor, and at the waitress at the diner.
His love is also completely directed at YOU.
In the same classes on the Law and
Grace, the teacher emphasized that “doing good things” doesn’t save us. That would be like trying to live under the
law, thinking that we have to earn our salvation, love and acceptation by
God. Our Christian doctrine says that we
are saved by grace alone; that there is nothing we have done or could ever do
to earn the abundant and eternal life that God offers us, and that we cannot be
right with God based on our actions (Ephesians 2:8-9 and Philippians 3:9).
Yet, the same Bible teaches that we
ought to do good things (James 2:17).
What then, is the motivation? Why or how are we supposed to do these good
things?
Because of love and grace: God’s
freely-given, abundant, directed-at-me love.
Because I’m loved, I do what God
tells me in the Bible (obedience).
Because I’m loved, I do good things (service), I tell others about this
love and grace (evangelism). Because I’m
loved, I apologize and accept others’ apologies (forgiveness). Because I’m loved, I love others (and I love
myself, too).
I’m learning to get comfortable in
this new skin. I’ve had close to three
decades living like others are the object of God’s love, and I’m just “useful”
in reaching His goal of physically and spiritually saving them. These changes are not overnight miracles;
they are the kind of miracles that grow: they establish roots and strengthen
before they start giving an abundant harvest.
We often have the idea that we are
like buckets: to receive love and good things until, once filled, we overflow
into others’ lives. An Indian couple who
came and taught here at the base shared that we should be more like pipes:
everything that enters, flows through, and then escapes from the other end. We don’t have to be full in order to spill
over just a little bit. Everything –
good or bad – that we receive, we will share.
I’ve asked God to turn the faucet on
higher – to pour more love into me. I
want to receive it for myself, and I know that the result of all this love and
grace is that it will flow on to others, gushing through me.
