Love. The Gospel at Work.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners [stealing, drunk, seductive, angry, frustrated, short-tempered, inconsiderate, ill-mannered, annoyed, untrusting, vengeful, impatient, lustful, unforgiving], Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8

When do you love? How far will you go to love? How long will you love?

When they make fun of you?

When they’re rude?

When they break your stuff?

When they steal your stuff?

When they lie to you?

When they hurt your kids?

Far enough to let them kill you?

We have a bigger goal, more at stake, than those with whom we interact. They want money, food to eat, a better stereo. We want their hearts, their minds, their souls, for the glory of God, for their freedom and life. We have given up our rights to be offended by admitting to God that we are sinners, admitting our own offense to the Perfect God and having received a complete pardon through his overly generous son. How then could we be offended by someone who stole our parking space or tried to steal our security?  A righteous and holy anger may burn within us for the cause of justice, but all of our own sin has been nailed to the Cross, and we are now ambassadors with a higher purpose: to place love before us, to offer grace to the sinner, to keep or hearts pure, even to the length of demonstrating God’s own love for us in this: that while we—and they—are yet sinners, Christ died for us—and them—and we have been crucified with Christ. Our lives are fully at the mercy and service of Christ.

After someone tried to break into our house this week, someone we are concerned may live a lot closer than we’d like, we were faced with the reality of our freedom in Christ and our cross to bear. As I processed the situation, through frustration of the injustice of stealing away my feelings of security, my trust in who we considered friends, my desire to love the people of Nicaragua, and ultimately my initial response of “I don’t have to be here. I could just go home where this hasn’t ever happened to me.” I began to ask God how much we have to deal with here, then I started praying for the potential culprit, who may have connections to our neighbors, and I became excited for the day that he would know Christ and turn from his stealing and drug dealing. Then it donned on me that I may not live to see that day; in fact, we may live to endure far more injustice from him and still be accountable for the love that we demonstrate in the meantime. After all, we do have more at stake here, a heart to be reached. Then I started asking God how far that love might have to go.

And that’s when I thought about Jim Elliott, giving his life for a tribe to know the saving grace of being reconciled to God through Christ, a purpose much higher than making sure my iPod doesn’t get stolen. How far do we have to go, sometimes, for the love of Christ to make its way through the hardness of a heart? Sometimes far enough that we don’t even get to see the day of redemption draw near.

The last question at hand, then, was how to make that grace and love clear in the midst of the righteous indignation toward injustice. For that, we are praying for God’s wisdom and heart. He is the one who so willingly demonstrated his own love for us in this. The gospel is coming alive in us, and God’s love is being poured out into our hearts.

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  Romans 5:5

As you can see, the Mighty God of the Universe is at work upon His Throne. Seeking him has become more urgent, as we are growing in our church community, as relationships are being built, and as we are becoming more accustomed to life here. Don and I are still processing what it means to be living here, actually on the ground living life in Granada, seeking our purposes and finding life is just as it always is: a process. We are learning a lot about ourselves, and more than anything the Gospel is being rooted within us. I am seeing God working full steam ahead to answer my prayers for discipleship and growing up. We are also learning Spanish quite well and are being blessed by our decision to be servants to Charles and Sarah in whatever task the ministry needs. So far this has included making copies, getting keys, meeting people to do work at El Puente, getting keys made, getting water for the teams coming through. We have been assigned to many a task to be done. Giving up all personal desires to be a servant has proven quite effective in teaching us humility. Just say yes has been a good policy—unless you’re Don in the barbershop, which I’ll let him share you in a post soon to come=).

Please see our prayer wall and keep praying for us. I have really felt a strong purpose in our need to be prayer warriors here, whether as a prayer group leader or just in personal prayer for the ministry and the city, I don’t know, but we know there is purpose in everything God is doing, so we will be in prayer. Thank you for your support!