The Greatest of These

My kindred spirit of a cousin responded to my last blog with affirmation and encouragement regarding my time here in Zambia (check it out under comments). And in the last week her words really challenged me to get my focus off of what I can do and go back to believing Him for the results, both in me and in the villages I serve. When Jesus walked the earth, in a place much different than His home, where dusty feet, angry mobs, and harsh critics had replaced streets of gold and perfection, He told His followers the greatest commandments were to first love God, and second to love others. Let me share with you what that has looked like for me this week. I share not to bring glory to myself in anyway, but to let you know how Christ’s words are penetrating my heart and to encourage you to allow Him to work in you and use you in your corner of the world. Each morning this week I’ve prayed that God would allow me to see Him and to increase my faith in Him. It was seen in how He can take seeds in my garden and grow them into vegetables I can share with my villagers (Trust me, if you knew my brown thumb you would recognize this is verging on miraculous). Loving others was sharing cappuccino with a little girl after her last penicillin injection for chicken pox. It was sitting in a hot room next to the bed of a woman suffering from boils all over her body. It was asking forgiveness from a neighbor whom I had hurt. It was walking 10 miles to watch our school’s futbol team play and making a fool of myself by cheering like mad. I might never see tangible change while I am here in Zambia, but I might also never again have the opportunity to hold a little girl in church while her mother is at home slowly dying. I may never have another opportunity to carry 20 liters of water on my head and then offer a drink to a thirsty child. I may never again sit with a family and have them question how I could leave everyone I love to come to a foreign land, only to explain to them that I really felt God had a purpose for me here. I pray I never again have to deal with the amount of dirt, bugs, or snakes that I have so intimately lived with these last nine months, but even if I do, I am so confident that He alone will give me the strength to pull through. Sometimes after these blogs I get feedback about how wonderful I am, and how incredible it is that I am doing these things. While I appreciate your encouragement, It is not my desire to take credit for this experience. Trust me I am a mess of a person a lot of the time. Most of you back home can attest to that! It is truly thru my belief and faith in God that I can do any of this. It may take just as much courage for you to walk across the room to talk with someone in need, or bring a meal to a friend with cancer, or ask forgiveness from a loved one. Let me encourage you by saying that God would not tell us the second most important commandment is to love our neighbor if He could not make it possible. God can raise the dead! He can surely teach you to hold your tongue, hold hands with an enemy, hold fast to His promises. But if we don’t grasp the first commandment-to love God, than the second one is impossible. If you don’t know God-the one true God, that created and loves us, the God that would allow His Son to walk the dusty roads from Jerusalem to Sidon and die on a cross for sins we have committed, we are committing, we will commit, the God that brings freedom- not rules and regulations- the God that allows run-on sentences like this one, if you don’t know that God, well I pray that you would take the time to seek Him out. He is Faithful. Holy. Consistent. Love. Trust me, without my faith in Him, without an understanding of His character, this whole experience here in Zambia would be a bleak and hopeless experiment of viewing the depravity of mankind. But because of Him, I can have hope-that He’ll do more than I could ever ask or imagine. So, my dear friends, I’ll leave you with all that to chew on! Love God first and love others second and then write me a letter and tell me what that looks like for you! Thank you for the love that you have shown me.