When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my
outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet
love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to
change my state with kings.
–William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29
We all have our struggles. A person fighting a life-long
addiction to drugs and alcohol is no worse than a person fighting a life-long
addiction to jealousy and criticism. One takes over the body while the other
takes over the spirit. But how many of these issues could be resolved if we
released the floodgate of God’s Love in our lives?
Perhaps, like the The
Two Towers movie in Tolkien’s Lord of
the Rings, all of the filth and straggling orcs of Isengard could be washed
away with one dam break.
My dam started breaking about eight months ago.
The
words that changed me
Well over a year had passed since my old identity had
shattered and I’d gradually learned to live from my new one. I had learned to
slow down, to listen to truth, and to just be.
Then I attended a special celebration of the Holy Spirit:
the Feast of Pentecost. At this celebration, I heard a sermon where the Holy
Spirit spoke these words through a Mr. Brown:
“How
differently would we live our lives if we truly believed that God deeply loved
us?
‘We would live our whole lives like we had already been
given an ‘A.’
‘And we would treat everyone else like they had already
been given an ‘A’ as well.”
I listened to those words, pondered them in my heart, and
soon forgot about them.
Preparing
for another adventure
I didn’t need to think too much about God’s love. I mean,
I already knew He loved me, right? I was busy—busy with finals, putting on an
end-of-the-year party for my Bible school students, and believing God to
provide the money I still needed for my exciting summer plans.
I was going back to the Middle East.
Ever since I went in 2013, I had been dying to go back,
but God didn’t give me permission to return until April 2015 when I bought my
ticket to leave on May 27. I was thrilled. I already knew I loved the Middle
East and teaching English, and I couldn’t wait to get out of my little world
and stretch toward new horizons and new people—new people who weren’t
narrow-minded and didn’t irritate me like some people in my little world.
Oh yes, I was going to be so good at loving people on the
other side of the world.
The
orcs still in Isengard
And I was pretty good, right? I still felt great waves of
brokenness sometimes, but I was much more self-aware and this time I knew who I
was and could live out of my identity.
But first, God spun me around and looked me in the eye:
“You have a problem with jealousy. A big problem.”
I squirmed. This was not new information. I had been
battling this besetting sin most of my life and had made very little headway.
But it doesn’t matter too much, right? Jealousy only
hurts me, not anybody else, right?
“Wrong. So wrong. Your jealousy is tearing up your
friend.”
I looked around and saw it was true. One of my friends
couldn’t take pleasure in certain things because she was afraid of how I would
feel. She was afraid that I wouldn’t be happy for her.
And I realized that she was right.
Sin is ugly. It’s ugly because it eats you from the
inside and turns you into a blind and ravenous monster, but it also turns on
the people you care the most about and devours them too.
No sin is a victimless crime. Jealousy is no exception.
Thus confronted with my own ugliness, I looked at my
life, both in the present and past. And I gave up on my battle
against jealousy. I realized that there was absolutely nothing I could do to
change myself, so I told God he was going to have to do it.
I also realized that I had only been asking God to
neutralize my jealousy; I hadn’t actually given him faith to take me the extra
mile and make me happy for a person.
So I asked him to do that too. I cried, asked my friend and God to forgive me,
and temporarily forgot the whole thing.
I boarded the plane for the Middle East fifteen days later.
Love shakes us up
Arriving back was like returning to a familiar honeymoon
destination. Here I was. . .
- long
flowing abayas brushed the ground
- calls
to prayer sang hauntingly from well-lit minarets
- fresh
chicken shwarma and biryani set my mouth watering
- rice
clumped at my fingertips where it was normal to eat with my hands again
- searing
hot wind tried to pry apart my hijab and prod me into a sweat in thirty seconds
flat.
I had arrived in my second home.
But within twenty-four hours of landing, I got very sick.
I still don’t know if it was dehydration or food poisoning, but I had a
migraine and nausea and could barely get out of bed for three days; I couldn’t
even keep water down for awhile. My sister threatened to take me to the
hospital for an IV.
Yet, in the middle of tossing my achy body in the middle
of the night, a wordless thought pressed all around me like a cloud. When I
struggled to put it into words later, all I could come up with was, “Love,” and
“Mr. Brown’s meeting.”
“How
differently would we live our lives if we truly believed that God deeply loved
us?”
Getting sick was not my idea of love. Yet somehow, I
started wondering if being sick was the most loving thing that God could do for
me.
Illness also triggered another emotion I never felt the
last time I ventured to the Middle East: homesickness. But I didn’t just miss
my home; I missed deep friendships that I had left on the other side of the
ocean. As I got better and other American English teachers started to arrive, I
asked God to give me another friend. Then I waited and almost forgot about it.
But God didn’t.
Searching
for purpose
 |
My adult English students
|
The summer activities started to pick up, and I began
teaching and meeting new people, both American and Arab. Everything was just as
I had remembered it, yet something was distinctly different about this trip. For
one thing, I was less busy. I still loved teaching, but I taught only one class with four students for four
days a week. This contrasted with my class of seventeen rowdy teenagers
from two years ago.
I had to fight to keep my classes from getting boring.
With a more laid-back schedule, my purpose for being
there also eluded me. Sure, I taught my little classes and visited many local
people, but I felt like I was missing something.
Also, the dynamics among summer teachers were just plain
different than they were two years before. This time, I didn’t get to see other
girls too often because I taught at a center with mostly guys and rode to work
with the same four guys every morning.
And yet, even these four guys were a gift. I could
probably write a whole post about those five-minute early morning car rides to
work. I would stuff myself into the back seat, clutching my briefcase and backpack.
A cheery “good morning” always escaped my lips, despite my best efforts to
stifle it. Usually I got a grunt or two for a reply. Then we were off, perhaps
making a wrong turn or running a red light depending on the driver, and just as
I settled in to respect the manly silence, one of them politely tried to make
conversation.
“What did you do last night?”
And so I told them, raising my voice above the music,
which ranged from Shania Twain (who they were scandalized I had never heard of) to Aladdin (who I had heard of). Then we arrived, and like stiff, out-of-tune accordions, we’d unfold ourselves from the car and stumble to the school where
I would make copies and the guys would make coffee and turn into more
respectable human beings.
 |
God gave me the friends
that I needed
|
Eventually, these guys became my friends.
- One of them started calling me “Cookie Monster” when he couldn’t
remember my real name.
- One of them wished me an awesome day
on a nauseating morning when I needed encouragement.
- One
of them lent me his guitar for a whole night.
However it happened, they were the friends I needed. Due
to a pile of fear in my life, I had never made friends with guys very easily.
Yet over the summer, God convicted me of not loving my brothers in Christ like
fellow humans.
It was a summer of convictions.
Learning
to trust and love
It was also a summer of trust. I faced regular headaches
and physical issues that were highly unusual for me. I couldn’t keep my
breakfasts down, so I started giving up on them and leaning on God completely
to get me through the teaching mornings. Once, I taught for nearly half an hour feeling like I was about to throw up any minute.
Meanwhile, I struggled to love some of the Americans
around me. It was easy to love local people because they didn’t have Jesus
inside of them, but what excuse did these people have?
I started writing people off:
- someone
was too cool
- someone
laughed disrespectfully at local people
- someone
was a flirt
- someone
seemed lukewarm toward God
And yet, these words kept coming back to me:
How
differently would we live our lives if we truly believed that God deeply loved
us?
We
would live our whole lives like we had already been given an “A.”
And
we would treat everyone else like they had already been given an “A” as well.
I shifted uncomfortably in my pride. Was I a
judgmental person? No, of course not. I just had high standards. There’s
nothing more annoying than people assuming that you’re judging them when you’re
not.
Judged
and found guilty
But God did things that would start to change everything.
First, he started showing me how wrong I was about
people. He showed me that . . .
- the “cool”
person was funny and down-to-earth
- the “disrespectful”
person was extremely caring
- the “flirt”
was genuinely kind to everybody
- the “lukewarm”
could challenge my faith
Before the summer finished, God hit me right between the
eyes with James 2:1:
“My dear
brothers and sisters, how can you
claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people
over others?” (NLT)
How can we claim that we believe in Jesus as long as we
are judging or playing favorites, even with personality types? If we truly
believe in the gospel, if we truly believe that Jesus died to save every person,
how can we prefer some people over others?
“How
differently would we live our lives if we truly believed that God deeply loved
us?
We would show that same extravagant love to everyone
equally.
I finally recognized that I was a judgmental person who desperately needed God’s help.
Dam
break
Like I said, it was a summer of convictions. But it was
also a summer of dam breaks.
Through every conviction, I sensed God’s hope and love.
This wasn’t the voice of the Enemy that I had been attuned to for so long. The old voice was faint, while this voice spoke love, love, love, as it had all along.
“Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline.” (Rev. 3:19)
And in the midst of all the correction, God did something
that he didn’t have to do: he answered my prayer for a friend. She dropped into
my world like a bomb ablaze and ready to explode. Redheaded, frank, discerning,
and unafraid to say what she thought about anything and anybody—yet careful
never to say anything unkind about people behind their backs.
She intimidated me. Probably I was afraid that if she got
wind of all my faults, she would start telling me about them.
I avoided her.
But I lived in an apartment with her, so she was
difficult to escape, and another girl who lived with us went back to the U.S.
for a month so it was my sister and me alone with J.
Somehow, we became great friends.
- Maybe
it happened when we both pressed on up a wadi to find a waterfall when other people
were content to stop and go swimming.
- Maybe
it happened when she snapped at me about something and then later apologized.
- Maybe
it happened when she figured out things about me before I or my sister did.
However it happened, it happened. I started opening up to
her about things that I had never felt comfortable talking about with anyone
else, and she accepted me just the way I was.
Still, she didn’t stop being forthright and truthful. As
we got closer, I waited for J’s hammer of truth to fall on my head and point
out all the weaknesses I knew I had.
One night, the hammer fell.
She didn’t point out my weaknesses. She pointed out other
things—good things I can’t repeat here. But I will never forget the tears in
her eyes as she added, “I don’t think you realize it yet, but I hope one day
God helps you to understand just how special you are.”
You
are loved.
I am terrible at receiving compliments. I tend to brush
them off and pretend that they don’t really mean anything, but something
stopped me from doing that this time.
Take
it. This is a gift from Me.
And so I opened my heart a little wider and let the Love
flood in.
How
differently would we live our lives if we truly believed that God deeply loved
us?
Love
gives us new eyes
Things didn’t change overnight. I still battled against
the same old self then and still do now, but Love started taking over my thinking more
and more so that I didn’t view the world the same way.
I read about the
generosity of God and saw that generous Love everywhere:
- in
each majestic wave that rolled in on the beach in endless procession
- in
the gift of new and old friendships
- in
the adventure of an eleven hour layover in Zurich
I had been wanting to visit Switzerland since I was nine years old! God didn't have to send me that gift, but he did.
“Let your love, God, shape my life. . .” (Psalm 119:41,
The Message)
I started seeing each event, good or bad, as the most
loving thing that God could have done for me. Because, really, that’s the
truth. If we truly believe that God loves us deeply, then even painful things
are meant to draw us closer to his heart.
Love
changes everything.
- Jealousy
loses its hold because no matter what happens, we have Love and everything that
the Giver of Love sees that we need.
- Fear
melts because perfect Love casts out fear. Every time.
- Carnal
judgment folds because Love sees everyone as a child of God who is irrevocably
loved.
- Stress
diminishes because Love is there and will carry us through. Always.
When we truly believe that God loves us deeply, we see
the world through fresh eyes.
- Every piece of nature is a love letter
- Every trial
is a song
- Every stranger is an opportunity
Love
calls us out of prison
 |
I started opening my gate
|
I also realized why I had struggled with being judgmental.
I was my own worst critic, and I had held myself to such a high standard for so
long that I was doing the same thing to everyone else.
That’s what happens when our hearts are buried behind
fortresses and lava moats. We lock our hearts away, demand perfection of
ourselves, and expect perfection from everyone else. Anyone who fails to meet
this standard is a failure—including ourselves.
But Jesus has crossed every chasm and forded every moat.
He is knocking on the gate and calling us out of our self-made prisons so that
we can know him.
 |
Love is a powerful flood
|
He is calling us out to love and be loved.
As I opened the gate of my fortress, the dam of Isengard
cracked. Love burst outward, flooding the plain, extinguishing every lava moat,
and sweeping me closer to the Source of this Love.
Receiving
Love
We cannot give Love if we haven’t received it fully for
ourselves. It’s like trying to exhale without inhaling first.
We cannot really know God until we know his Love, because
God is Love. Trying to have one without the other is like trying to skin God alive.
Love is the skin that God wears at all times. We cannot fully recognize God
until we see his skin; they are inseparable.
People can only separate Love and God when they kill God
first, which is what many people are trying to do today. The problem is that skin is only alive when it’s still attached to the body. Murder
God and pilfer his love, and we’re left with flaky dead cells.
But God doesn’t offer us dead cells. The Love he offers is
a living thing. It’s a part of himself. He will clothe us in this Love every
day, if we’ll let him.
If we truly embrace this Love for ourselves and others, I
guarantee it will shape us. It’s started shaping me. Yes, some days I feel
burned out and I want to bite someone’s head off and crawl into a hole to keep
my heart dry and safe. But when I unearth it, I remember the Love, and I let my
heart saturate in it as I stretch out to offer the world the little that I have
to offer.
This Love fortifies me and has left no area of my life untouched.
- I
can relax as I play my violin before a crowd because I am playing from a
position of Love, not striving to please God or people.
- I
can swallow my fear of heights and scale Mt. Washington because Love propels me
onward.
- I
can look at college finals and ESL teaching schedules with a smile because Love
makes a way every time and provides plenty of opportunities to trust.
- I
can offer hugs and encouragement to my hurting girls because the Source of Love
provides an endless supply.
- I
can walk down the street and see beautiful men and women everywhere—people that
God has created and loves deeply. And I’m not quite so terrified to talk to
them.
I went to the Middle East to escape my little world
and the people in it. Ironically, God sent me to the other side of the world so
that I could learn to love my neighbors back home more effectively.
As I returned to the United States and resumed
my position on staff at my Bible school, an unprecedented Love filled my heart
for my students and fellow staff members. I no longer saw people who irritated
me. I saw faithful followers whom God had already given an “A.”
But before we can experience transformation, we must
receive that Love. If we close our eyes to the beauty around us, fill the
vacuum of our lives with constant activity, or brush off the people who show us
love every day, we block off the portals God is pouring his Love through.
We must listen and receive Love with our arms wide open.
It is flowing constantly around us. It is up to us to remember it and let it
in. Only then can Love shape our lives.
