Embracing His Heart

I'm done with this whole "Jesus lives in my heart" deal.

At four-years old, I asked Jesus to come a live in my heart, but I am so over that.

Now before you call my youth pastor to report another young person running from Christianity, just hold up and hear me out for a second.

Rather than Jesus living in my heart, I want to live in His.

I am so over a Christian culture where Jesus comes to live in our hearts - but dude, like, keep your feet off my heart's coffee table, OK? And, yeah, the guest bed is in the basement.

Make yourself at home (but please stay out of my bedroom), fair trade(-ish) coffee's in the coffeepot, here's the wifi password, and I'll see you when I get back from Function/Activity/Meeting No. 24573290.

Huh?

No way. That is not what pursuing, embracing, living like Jesus is about. 

We have to stop just fitting Jesus into our hearts, lives, agendas, and start living out His heart.

We're ok with the whole Christian deal, as long as Jesus moves into our lives. But what if we abandoned it all to live in the middle of His heart?

Forget about moving Him into the guest bed in the basement of our hearts and just giving Him Sundays... Imagine what could happen if we literally pulled out our entire, beating, ugly, bleeding hearts, held them out to the One who bled for us and said "Here - do what you will with this awful mess."

I'm gonna take a wild guess here and say it would be beautifully ravaging... ravaging-ly beautiful.

OK... So maybe I'm not totally over this Jesus lives in my heart thing. 

But let's be Kingdom-people who live for more than that.

Let's literally surrender our entire hearts to Jesus - give up the whole entire thing and tell Him to take. it. away.

We want to know His heart.

Let's surrender our entire bleeding, beating hearts to the One who bled for us and really mean it -

Take me to the middle of Your heart.

Meet Johnrel

"I can't get that beach out of my head." 

I'm not your typical muddle-of-tears girl [OK, I am, but it would just be insensitive not to cry through some of those movies, don't you think?], but oh yeah, I'm choke-whispering those words out though a blur.

Bless my sweet friend's soul for putting up with this.

This is October. I'm chatting with my mama a few days later and she goes, "So, are you gonna sponsor a child from that community?"

And - oh yes. This is the greatest part, you see.

I serve a God who refuses to leave me in that muddle-of-tears state. When all that grief is over and all that's left is this burden for a certain beach under a certain bridge that connects two islands that belong to a certain cluster of islands that make up a certain country... I am not left to helplessly carry this burden.

I serve a God who gives me this invitation...

"Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;
lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free,
and remove the chains that bind people.
Share your food with the hungry,
and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them,
and do not hide from relatives who need your help."
- Isaiah 58:6-7

What a privilege, blessing, hope this is.

Believe this, friends: We don't have to serve and love the world's poor and vulnerable. 

We get to.

Because He first loved us, we get to partner with Love Himself to feed, serve, love His sheep. 

What could be greater in this world?

And so it is with absolute joy that I introduce you to Johnrel:

Johnrel attends the Compassion Child Development Centre that ministers to the community under that bridge. And he is my new Compassion child.

It's wild to think that just a few short months ago I was standing in his community during a filming trip for True Story: What God Wants Us To Do About Poverty, Compassion Canada's new youth curriculum video series. Did I walk by his home, his parents' place of work, his favourite places to play? Did I walk by him? 

Totally not gonna lie... I've been looking through photos from our trip for a possible Johnrel sighting. ;)

I am beyond excited about adding Johnrel to our Compassion family.

On top of that - I remain immensely thankful for the ministry of Compassion International. 

Not only for their instrumental role in enabling individuals to respond to God's call to serve and love the poor, but for their unwavering commitment to serving children, empowering the church, and most importantly, to bringing people to Christ. 

Because even when physical poverty is gone, hopelessness can still remain. Just ask the rich young ruler. Or better yet, maybe ask those hopeless parts of yourself? I know I have to all too often. 

But when the Hope of Christ is brought to the darkest places of this world and of our hearts... This is where poverty, hopelessness, despair, and brokenness find an eternal end. 

In Christ, we find more than overwhelming victory, because of His perfect love for us.

I think that's pretty sweet.

So, to sum this all up, I guess this just means I'll have to wander my way back over to the Philippines sometime soon to meet Johnrel. :)

-

Need your own little excuse to travel? Here you go: Sponsor a Child with Compassion. [Really, it'll change your life. I mean, how cool is it that we get to partner with the Creator of this universe in loving on His kids?]

Also - it's coming soon, friends... I can. not. wait. to share True Story with you!!! AHHHHHH. :)

#oneword2015: Embrace

We did this exercise at church the other week where we all formed our hands into this cupped/open hands shape to symbolize grace, and the beauty of the exercise was that it was unclear whether we were giving or receiving grace.

That's my word this year.

Embrace.

Or rather, embraced and embracing. Because I am embraced by the love of Christ, I can embrace others with the love of Christ.

The idea of this #oneword2015 comes from this: My soul will rest in Your embrace.

And it just started to make a lot of sense.

First off... Is that verse not a perfect transition from "less" into "embrace"?! I think so.

I've dumped it all in the trash because...

I want a heightened awareness of His ever-steady embrace, and to embrace Him more and more in return. This may start with shakily attempting to read the Bible in a year using the She Reads Truth app... or at least the New Testament + the Psalms. I think I might fail. But the point here isn't successfully reading the entire New Testament [Take note, Miss-Perfectionist-Me who doesn't fail and tends to miss the point of these things!]... the point is becoming more aware of His embrace. Giving myself more space to rest in His embrace. And that may prove to be much harder... and way more important. 

I want to embrace others with His {love, grace, hope, peace} more and more this year. The people around me. The people in my community who may be harder to spot. The people all around the world. I can embrace others with His love because I have been embraced by Him. And my embrace of Him is expressed by embracing His children... This all goes hand-in-hand!

I want to embrace the places, experiences and communities in which He places me this year. As I step into new communities this year after graduation in June, I want to embrace the places He calls me to as for-such-a-time-as-this moments. I want to be so aware of the people around me in these new communities that need to be embraced by His love, and act on it.

Happy New Year, friends! Here's to 2015... May we all be embraced and embracing.


What's your #oneword2015?