Brave

P 2625 Love needs to be given away.

/ DVH

“Love is never wasted for its value does not rest upon reciprocity…  …To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” (C.S. Lewis – The Four Loves.) “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Matthew 6:21.

I was challenged by what C.S. Lewis said, because I think it is so true. I have met people who decided loving others was not ‘safe’ — and, sadly, they seemed to be some of the most black and white people I ever met. It was as if all colour was sucked right out of them. In my opinion ‘compassion and empathy’ bring God’s glorious out-of-this-world’s colour into, and out of our little lives. Those incredible gifts are the very essence of Christ’s being and life. However, without His Presence we can do nothing but flap our gums and look awkward. But with Him, we can usher in His kingdom here on earth, right here, right now. Our God is always NOW.

Let’s be clear, loving others is not only hard, like C.S said, it is fraught with danger. People are not reliable by nature, instead they have been badly influenced by the world around them. However, we have, inside us, the power to speak His life into others. Nobody can tell me that this kind of thing doesn’t or can’t happen, because I’ve watched it happen time and time again! A seemingly ordinary person, who is polite and helpful – but distant – suddenly floods with the Lord’s colour and His light, and they are alive in a way that seemed impossible a second ago. It takes my breath away every single time.

If we want to see Him at work and watch what He can do, first we need to lay aside our fear of rejection, abandonment and looking foolish. We will need to be brave. At times like this my favourite thought is: “I am never going to see these people again, what do I care what they think of me?”  So I start with whatever small thought He has given me, and I just keep pulling on that thread. Then, I stop and wait. I’m waiting to see what the Lord will do next. I try not to speak in paragraphs or whole pages. Instead, I do my best to speak as simply and clearly as I can. But the main point is: I do what He tells me to do the way He tells me to do it.

My dear hubby has been used by the Lord in this way, in front of my eyes, many times.  And he illustrates this releasing of God’s  glorious colours in others, time and time again when we are on the road. He is normally quite shy, and retiring, or that’s how he appears, until the Lord lights up inside him! At those times he is so bold when he speaks, even to strangers. And they glow under the lamp-light of God’s kindness and approval.  Then they tell him all kinds of personal things they probably wouldn’t even dream of telling people they know!

Hubby’s personal transformation illustrates to me what the kingdom looks like when it flows through us toward others. In those times we do not have to persuade anybody that God is real … when He turns up, His Presence is self-explanatory! Everyone knows that He is there. They don’t know, how or why … but they know that something extraordinary is going on. Mostly, the people we speak to look like little children who suddenly feel at home and LOVED.

God loved us so much He gave… and unless we participate in a lifetime of giving, loving and continually caring for everybody we meet, we will get stuck in a grey world that is the same old same old, day after day after day. You know, when many Christians get stuck spiritually, they end up hoping that going to church week by week will do. Actually, our relationship with Him is meant to be alive and vibrant minute by minute. If we only have Christian friends and Christian fellowship, then we have limited our exposure to the world around us. This means we will most likely never see the Lord shine as brightly as He does in the darkness.

Lately, we’ve all been so focussed on making ourselves feel better, we forgotten we are keepers of the most precious substance on this earth – HIS LOVE.  Love is meant to be given away, not hidden or hoarded. Hiding it defeats the very purpose we were given love in the first place! The more we give His love away, the more our lives will be bombarded with His colour and beauty. Jesus can’t help Himself, He just loves to do extraordinary things … usually without our permission! YAY! Our privilege and joy is – we are allowed to watch Him do them.  Aren’t we the blessed ones? 👋

P 2605 Faith in action.

/ DVH

I Kings 18:41-46 “And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.”  So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees. “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked. “There is nothing there,” he said. Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.” The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’” Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.”

I definitely do not bat in Elijah’s league and I’m not sure I wish I did either – that man of God did some truly spectacularly brave stuff!  He prayed until he knew what God was going to do next! Meanwhile, I love the way the bible does not hide the other bits where human beings act like faithless cowards. Whilst reading about Elijah this time, I learnt that if you want to beat the rain, then you will have to learn to run like the wind! 

I enjoy these stories. The courage in Elijah’s heart that led him to obey God’s instructions step-by-step, eventually flew out of the window when he was threatened by Jezebel and co. He’s so human! Right after that huge miracle of fire from heaven – when he dispatches the opposition’s front men – he turns into a scared, whingey whiner-pot, because he is threatened by Jezebel. She wants to make him into cat food! Sigh. I so identify with his response.. But, eventually, his personal relationship with the Lord takes him where his feet do not want to go.

I fight fear about what comes next all the time … instead of focussing on the wonderful thing the Lord is doing NOW. Sometimes, other people and their responses and actions don’t help either! There have been times when I have caught myself waiting for the other shoe to drop, because bad things are happening all around me and I hope I can somehow avoid the bad stuff… instead of watching for the Lord’s deliverance. There are also times where I mentally run away hoping God won’t notice. Fat chance.

Back to this passage, Elijah prophesied rain when there was no rain, and nobody expected it either. Let’s get this straight – Elijah did not imagine rain … he simply spoke out what he had heard from the Spirit of God out loud. He declared it. He saw the rain coming in his spirit-man before it ever appeared on the horizon. Prophecy is not saying what WE want, or WE think we need, and expecting it to happen, it is tuning in to what GOD Himself is saying and announcing that. And yes, there is a difference.

Meanwhile, does anyone else but me think that Elijah’s servant must have gotten sick of running back and forth, looking for clouds that weren’t there? …  …Until they finally were! Six times that man trudged back and forth with nothing to report. To me this is what true servanthood looks like – it looks like doing what our Lord says, simply because He said it. In our current environment, that servant would have probably quit, and gone and reported Elijah to the union! 😂 At the same time, imagine Elijah’s faith – he kept continually sending that man to check!

You know, today we could carefully analyse, or even try to copy what Elijah said, or what he did, or how he did it, when he saw all those incredible miracles. That giant heavenly mountain-top barbecue is so awe-inspiring, perhaps we secretly hope that we can do stuff like that too? But God isn’t looking for repeat performances. That was then. Analysing how it happened so we can do it again, will not bring us any closer to the God Who made it happen. These stories are not formulas to be followed – they are testimonies of how incredible our God is, and what a man of faith can do! The best aim we can ever have is to know Him, intimately. When you look at Elijah’s conversations with Almighty God, you can see they have a relationship!

This great prophet shows us that imperfect people can serve a perfect God and see and do spectacular things … or not! This is one of the reasons I love the Old Testament. A parade of very different people pass by, serving – or not serving God, ushering in all kinds of outcomes. It is astonishing that in this day and age, the bible appears to end up being about us getting or making God do stuff for us … when the Old Testament clearly says He is looking for people who will do what HE wants!

In my heart, faith = obedience. No more no less. Sometimes there are feelings, sometimes there are not. Feelings are a nice bonus, but my advice is, don’t get used to them… because sometimes our feelings will drag us away from God, leading us into running away and hiding. These stories about Elijah are profound, because we can see with our own eyes, that our God is the God of second, third, fourth and fifth chances. Faith does something. It doesn’t just have opinions – it has actions. We are faltering in our faith because we have head knowledge NOT active faith like Elijah. 👋