A Love Story.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.  -1Corinthians 13v4-8.

1Corinthians 13:1-2 begins with this;

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Let me repeat that. In my language.

If I think I’m freakin awesome, but don’t care about your feelings or what you think, I am not awesome at all. If I’m a big fat know it all, start clubs, studies, or petition global changes, but aren’t there at 2am when you break down, I am nothing. If I travel the earth, give away my money, live in the mountains and start cool websites, but don’t have a love for the children of God, then I have nothing, gain nothing, am…nothing.

This is in the bible. Jesus doesn’t care how much you give of yourself if that sacrifice isn’t tied to a deep committment to love the same people that He loved, bled, and died for.

I totally got this wrong.

Last week God showed me the heart of the lie I’d been living.

I’ve been hellfire and damnation disguised as love and tolerance for far too long. It happens.  Just like former smokers or alcoholics who beat their addictions only to become the worst critics of those who still drink and smoke. Fitness addicts are often former fatties who point and laugh at those still struggling with weight and image. All too often we come to know the truly amazing grace of God in our own lives and then fail on an epic level to extend that grace to anyone else, ever.

Last week changed everything.

I spent seven days in central Mexico with 22 extraordinary people who went to see Gods kingdom here on earth by investing in the lives of  people and children that will never be able to repay them. Ever.

I went with a crappy attitude and a half-hearted desire to see God move. I emailed my pastor and told him I felt myself slipping away. That even though I loved God, I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. I was feeding the homeless, going to bible studies, writing blogs, going on missions trips, trying desperately to change the world, but I was still dead on the inside. Sure, I believed that I wanted to be used by God, but only in that noncommittal way most people do, when it’s convenient, when it doesn’t interfere. When I can treat God like an employee or a genie, or like a nice old man who I can either listen to or blow off. So, I really only wanted God to be God if he did what I said. Which would mean that good intentions aside, I never really wanted to do His will at all.

I am so thankful that God is a God of relationships. That He loves me when I can’t love myself, and that He doesn’t judge me the same way that I judge others.  He has a plan and purpose for my life even when I can’t see past my own. I am usually very wrong before I get to be right. He has designed me to learn through epic failures so that others don’t have to.

This is what I learned.

We left from Fort Lauderdale, flew to El Paso, got on a bus. It broke down. We got on another. Finally, we were inside the border, on another bus that, 6 hours later,  arrived in Chihuahua City. I had a very smarmy attitude. I think a lot of us did. We were definitely all holding onto some spiritual baggage. One girl thought the drug gangs were going to get us. Another thought it was going to be the water. One of the “men” was acting like a little girl about germs and spiders. We had only been here for a day and it was turning into the worst trip ever.

Then we got to the base house in the mountains. This is where it really came together. This is where God showed up.

Our first night in the Sierra Madres we held a bonfire. The women got together and made the best food I have ever in my life (not even kidding) tasted. John started an impromptu worship jam and dance party. Everybody loosened up. We looked into the night sky and saw the  heavens open up around us in an entirely new way. The sound of the mountains, the howls in the distance, the chill of the air, the crackle and aroma of sage and mesquite burning in the fire pit. Our host, Rojelio (Row-hee-lee-oh), shared his testimony through a translator, spoke of a time when his wife prayed for him to be a Godly husband, a man of honor, a man of love. He shared that he had other plans, they involved quick money, long hours, and bad decisions. The Lord blessed him with an uncle who was a drug runner in Juarez. The uncle promised Rojelio some easy money if he’d help deliver used cars to the United States. Rojelio did two years in jail when it was discovered that his car was concealing marijuana. He took the fall for his uncle. While in jail he held bible studies and brought many men to the knowledge of Jesus. When he got out he became the man who his wife always wanted him to be. He forgave his uncle, told him about Jesus. Moved to the mountains and now helps the Tarahumara indians to build their homes, find food and water, and teaches them about our living, breathing, loving, God.

After Rojelio spoke, one of the women, Elizabeth, began to speak about building the temple. Haggai 1:2 says this; “Consider your ways. Go up to the mountains, bring wood and build the temple, that I may take pleasure in it and that I may be glorified, says the LORD.”

It struck home. It’s the same chapter that led me to leave Florida and move to Colorado. It’s the verse that I quote when talking about doing something new in the mountains, new monasticism, radical christianity, ect.

Something was stirring.

I got to know a friend whose life has immeasurably blessed me. The amount of  love pouring through everything she does showed me something fascinating about Jesus in a way that could only be Jesus. Love. Christs Love. The Holy Spirits Love. A very dangerous love. A greater love has none but this, that He would lay down his life for one another kind of love.

Wow.

I spent the night mostly awake. I stumbled through a chapter of James, a few verses in Luke, and reread Haggai.

I’ve come to the mountains. I am His temple, and yet it lies here in ruins. Here I am, in ruins. I need you Lord.

I wept.

Jesus didn’t come so that I could move to the mountains and be a better skiier. He didn’t die so that I could be a millionaire. He didn’t rise again so I could feed the homeless, go on missions trips, feel good about my salvation, or be a loveless, lifeless hypocrite.

God so loved us that He sent his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus did not come to condemn the world but that, through Him, the world might be saved.

This is pretty basic Christian philosophy. So basic that we forget. That I forget.

God so loved us.

Something changed in me that moment. My heart broke in a thousand places for a thousand reasons. I wanted to love as Jesus loved. Without worrying about looking cool or whether or not we’ll be  friends on facebook. To see each person as Christ sees them. Precious, lovely, broken, and yet beautiful. The glory and the strength of the Lord. It is so easy to live in darkness, to call things dark or evil, because it’s what we know so well. But I am beginning to see with the eyes of my savior. And he made everything glorious. God made the earth and all its fullness, and when it was finished, He called it good.

This is love. This is our job.

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