Raindrops, Swings, and Love

God has blessed with a very dear friend in college.  She’s a girl who is starving for God and it seems like to matter how many Christian books she reads or devotionals she does, there is always a longing in her soul to want to learn more, to be able to grasp at God’s heart and gain a clearer picture of who He is.  Her desire is quite inspiring.  This girl is also severely wounded in her heart.  She has experienced some things that I find hard imagining and she carries these with her, each day praying against temptation to let the past dictate her future, but nonetheless the burdens remain.  We have had so many conversations about life.  I admire her honesty and her complete awareness of the times that she sins.  We will often just sit in the stupe and a dinner date turns into a time of heart cleansing.  I thought I was pretty good at helping too.  I would always have something to say, some revelation and truth about God that I had learned in the past.  It was pretty mch me just trying to pull whatever “godly” thing I could think of out and hope it would get her on the right track…. hope it would let her see God’s heart.

This is when my own revelation came in.  I have been going through Matthew and Chapter 15 verse 8-9 really convicted me:  “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.”

Jesus had been teaching about what was unclean and what was clean.  He says that what comes from the mouth shows the conditions of a person’s heart.  He’s saying that it’s the heart behind the actions that matters, not just the actions.  It made me think about all of the endless advice I try to give people.  I see a hurting person and can tell them so much about God’s love, but I’ve been convicted that sometimes my words are becoming the “rules taught by men.”  So often I’ve listened to the advice of a friend over going to God and now I’m thinking that maybe I’ve been worshiping a person’s advise over the ultimate Advisor.  Then I have come to think about my motives for giving the advice.  Is it because I really care about the person’s well being?  Do I really say all of these things because I love them and my heart is breaking for them? Or am I saying things because I see their problem and a challenge for me… a theological challenge that I much succeed in?? And so I commence by thinking of relevant verses and more lessons God has taught me trying to prove to the person hurting that God is good.

Only God can prove His Goodness.  Only God will heal a person’s soul.  God is the one who sent His Son… his son… to redeem the broken.  That was how he demonstrated true, ultimate, perfect LOVE.

And so the question has made its way to my mind… Do I actually love people?

This past Thursday there was a bro/sis worship at 10pm.  I made my way over to the guys floor and was sitting on the far right side of the room.  As we sang, my eyes caught sight of my friend (the one I describe above) and she is there near tears.  I had talked to her earlier and knew that the day had been rough for her.  There was this intense longing in my heart to go and embrace her, to tell her that it was alright to cry, that it was ok to let God in.  And yet fear embraced me.  I would have to walk in front of everyone in the room to get to her because of where I was sitting.  I would be squeezing past people, interrupting their worship.  They may think that I was leaving early.. too busy to worship on a school night.  The thoughts of others were preventing me from showing love.  After debating about it for the first song, I finally knew I had to act and so I maneuvered awkwardly through the people, made it to my friend and gave her an enormous hug.  I saw the moisture now that was clinging to her lower lids, as if she were afraid to let them fall.  But they did now.  As we worshiped together, one arm around eachother, her other hand in mine, I sensed God saying that I needed to learn how to love.  I needed to learn how to sacrifice my time for someone, to listen to their problems intently without worrying about the hw I could be doing or the sleep I could be getting.  I needed to take what 1 Corinthians says and be patient, kind, not envious, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, slow to anger, forgiving, and delighting in God.  Imagine the power that love would have on this world if we actually did these things.  If we then took Jesus’ example and sacrificed ourselves for others.

After the worship set ended, my friend had this look in her eyes and I knew it meant she wanted to go outside because that’s where she felt closest to God.  It was indeed pouring outside, but as we stood by the exit staring at the heavy drops hitting the pavement, she began sharing with.  She said that she’d noticed how when a person doesn’t take a bath they begin to smell and so it’s kinda like that stench of death.  She said that’s why we must be washed everyday.  And so she looks out into the rain and hesitates about going in.  She’s afraid it will be too cold, but I think her fear cut deeper.  I grabbed her and said that that’s why she had to get out in the rain.  She needed some washing… she needed some cleansing… some kisses falling down from the heavens.  We ran through the rain to the swing set next to our dorm and just began swinging, letting the water purify us… letting God take away our pain or at least were reminded of how much we need to die to ourselves each day and be revived, be filled by God’s living water.

We swung until my pajamas were soaked through, my sweatshirt no longer providing warmth.  We sang worship songs and looked toward the heavens allowing each droplet that struck our face wash away a little of the pain that we held inside.  I learned that love is hard only because we hold onto other things harder.  That night I let go of the speech I had to give the next day, I let go of the lack of sleep I was suffering from.  That night I took in the beauty of God’s love and believe that I’m really just seeing the beginning of it.

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