Family Love

Here we are at another Monday, this one being the last of the month of March. I spent the weekend with my extended family in a lodge in Pretoria for my sister's wedding, and I realized how spoilt I am with the relationships I have in my family. From sisters and brothers, parents and grandparents, to aunts and uncles, cousins and in-laws. All of them are so special and exciting to me. My family; a group of people that travel from Cape Town, Durban, London, Australia, and almost everywhere else you can think of to spend a weekend together celebrating my sister's marriage. It was the kind of weekend where you reach the Sunday afternoon and think to yourself, "Wow that was incredible, I feel like my heart is so filled up with love. What? I have to go to work tomorrow morning? But that seems like it's a whole world away."

All the way through it all and after it all, the conversation kept returning to Sao Paulo. "So when are you going to leave? How long are you planning to be there for? What exactly is it that you're going to do?" My thoughts were held firm on my calling, and being surrounded by a family that was making my heart overflow with love affected the patterns of these thoughts with a deep impact. I would love to stay in this country, surrounded so closely by people who love me, and people who I love so much. I would even love to move to the countries where many of these people now live, and be close to them, and be able to know that I can spend the weekend with family who love me, not because of what I do, but because of who I am.

The inevitable thought, however, keeps on surfacing in the pool of my heart: the precious children on the streets of Sao Paulo will never know this kind of love, joy or fulfillment. That thought saddened and even scared me. I am called to leave my family and friends, and go be a family that these kids will, otherwise, never know, and I get these urges to abandon that calling so that I can enjoy these special times more often. I know these kinds of feelings are natural and healthy, however, when I step back, they feel selfish.

Is it not a rational thought to receive this kind of love, and then be willing to share it? Is it not advancement in this kind of love, and an overflow of a healthy family love that can drive me to plant it where there is none?

My thoughts this week for you are that you may cherish and value every member of your family. That you don't take them for granted, or the love and sacrifices they make for you as something to be expected. My prayers are that, together, we may learn how to grow in this love. Grow into more than just being receivers and takers, but also to be givers and sharers. To pour out the abundance of love we may receive into the hearts of the desperate and empty. This could very well be the answer to the depravity in our communities.

Amen.

Dinner With the King

Something really interesting happened a couple thousand years back, just before Jesus was to be executed. He had a Passover dinner with his twelve disciples in a stranger’s house. This wasn't too out of the ordinary, even though there were a few background stories going on at the table, including this one Man being very aware of the fact that He was about to be tortured and killed. What He did at that dinner, though, was new. Jesus took off His coat, dropped to His knees and began to wash their feet. All twelve of them. One by one, He washed off all the dirt and dust of the earth from their feet. Peter, Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, the other James, Lebbaues, Simon and even the feet of Judas. Jesus knelt before each of them and served them. I often feel like I am Judas, and that Jesus is helping me in a way that I don't deserve. Even after all the amazing things He does for me, I still so often find that I get up from the table and betray Him.

I had another dinner this past weekend with some friends of mine, and they introduced me to some missionary friends of theirs who are in South Africa from Brazil. I had an amazing opportunity to ask them a whole bunch of questions about the culture changes, and the language, and the climate of the country that I'm moving to. They asked me what I was going to do there, so I told them that I was going to be a missionary to the street children of Brazil, and in order to do so, I was going to have to study Portuguese so I can have an extended stay there on a student visa. The one lady asked where I was studying, and when I told her Mackenzie University she threw her hands up and grinned, and began to tell me that her dad was the vice president of the university at one stage, and even now, her twin brother still works there in the linguistics department, and she was going to speak to him about me.

I received a lot of advice from the two Brazilian couples, and the one piece I'll never forget is when I was told a sort of timeline of changes that I can expect after the move: The first two weeks will be exciting and adrenaline enthused fun. Then I will start realizing the change has occurred, getting headaches from my mind trying to listen to a different language all day, and dealing with a culture change. Then after two months, and all the excitement has died down, I'll begin comparing South Africa to Brazil, the negatives with the positives, which could make me withdraw to myself from my new home. My friend told me not to worry, that all this is normal. I feel that now I know this beforehand, though, I can combat it more equipped.

I am amazed at the contacts that God is placing in my life, and the way He's making sure I'm looked after, and encouraged.

Even though I have betrayed my God so selfishly, I know that if I sit down before Him, and dine with Him, as He invites me to do in Revelations 3:20, He will forgive me, and accept me back. So here I sit, having dinner with the King, and He's washed my feet all over again. Now I'm left with the choice: how will I get up from the table? Will I get up, like Judas did, and betray Him? Or will I get up like Peter, or like James, or Matthew, John or Andrew, and give my life back to Him? I know what I choose today.

Rapid Waters

On Saturday morning I did some river rafting with my company in Parys. I have never gone river rafting before, and the experience was quite exhilarating. I could feel the overwhelming power of the water rushing at 30 cubic meters a second carrying me down an unpredictable, meandering river whilst I sat, unstrapped, in an inflatable raft, battling the hydraulics with my unparalleled weapon: a 2m pole with a plastic plate on either end. Yet, even though most of the time my 'captain' and I (the 'engine') managed to manoeuvre the raft adequately enough to stay inside of it, there were also times when all we could do was hold on while the water toyed with us and launched us over rocks and rapids, taking us wherever it wanted to.


This week has been an exciting week in God's orchestration of the journey to Sao Paulo. Our role in God's plans for our lives is of course vital, but in essence, the most vital part is to be in the journey of God. It's not my control that's going to eventuate in a successful migration. It's God's hand, and God's power, and God's will that will direct me despite even my best efforts. Week by week, I am trying to do what I can to make this dream happen, but at the end of the day, it's Him who is in control. He placed this call on my life. He is the water propelling my raft. The momentum that is carrying me over the obstacles. And even when I hit turbulent water, my destination has already been determined, whether I can see what is coming up beyond the next bend or not. I have to admit, I saw some people capsize their rafts yesterday, and there are times when it feels as if I've fallen out of the boat and out of any sense of control, but, like I saw yesterday, there was always someone around who would help the fallen boatman out of the water and back in the boat and the whole time they were continuing in the same direction as everyone else.
So what happened this week? Something that gets me very excited. I went to a 21st on Saturday night, not knowing almost anyone except the birthday girl. She placed me at a table with her brother. I knew him through association with my brother. On the other side of me was a guy I had never met, but after striking up a conversation with him and his wife, I somehow got to telling them about Brazil. They were very excited and encouraging and even offered to support me financially every month while I'm there. This is probably the most humbling experience I've had so far, that a couple who have just had a child, and are moving to another country even, are willing to help out a cause that they believe in with me as their entrusted ambassador. (and if you're reading this, thank you so much!)
I went to church, Sunday morning, and was introduced to a small group leader who told me that his small group are looking for missionaries to get behind and pray for and support. He asked if he could find out more about what I'm doing so he could speak to his group. I, again, was overwhelmed that all this is happening outside of my influence, and control, and that God in His plan, is calling people from everywhere to get behind a calling He's placed on me.
I hope the rapids you face, and the rocks approaching your journey don't intimidate you enough to make you jump ship and swim for shore. If we can be the friend that helps others back in their boats, our journey down God's river will be one surrounded by love, company and people who are willing to abandon their comfort zone to take care of us. So let's take up our paddles and let our lives go with His flow.

Value and Worth

The value placed on anything is normally determined by the worth assigned it by outside factors. Did you follow that? For example, the value of petrol is increasing all the time, because people all over the world are demanding it, saying it's worthy of their hard-earned money and so people will pay higher prices for it. Lesser objects in this world will get none of our attention or money because we don't really care for their use.

When it comes to a human life, however, we seem to throw away this whole idea, and we attempt to assign our own value on our own lives, and on the lives of each other, when we have no position or right to do that, because we're of the same calibre. Engineers cannot set their own value on a construction project. This is why we have actuaries. (otherwise there's a good chance we'd demand more than we're worth) But we still seem to decide, based on the things that happen to us and the reactions people give us, just how valuable our very own lives are.

We cannot set the value of our own life, only God, being the outside factor, can. Which is why, in Matthew 10, Jesus challenges people on their self worth saying that we're of far more value to God than anything we take the time to give a high value to. Straight after that, He says that if we deny Him before man, He'll deny us before God. A lot of us seem to struggle with this whole idea. We don't believe that we are of any value to Jesus, that He doesn't care for us at all, so we completely reject His attempt to love us and deny Him. His response to that, being a just and righteous Being, can only be to deny us before God.

Many of us have gone through really tough times in life, and through this concluded that we can't have any value to God. He must not care for us because of this. We forget how He promises justice at the end of life, and that He, Himself, will wipe away every tear. If we have been wronged, it was never that our value fell beneath God's love, preventing Him from acting. That's completely opposite to what His Word says. More often, it's that people, with free will, have either disregarded the worth of the human life and acted with that disrespect for humanity, or there has been a medical deficiency putting an obstacle in the path of this love God offers. Either way, He made it very clear that every single human life on this earth was of infinite value to Him when He paid an infinite price on a cross. So, ultimately, who are we to say that anyone else is of less value to a quality life than we are, or that we ourselves cannot qualify for all God has to offer? With this in mind, let us remember that our temporal state of life is not the focus of God. Our eternal, just, and righteous communion with Him is the reward of His undeserving value He mysteriously places on us, His sons and daughters.

More and more I am being reminded about the undeserving suffering that these kids on the street are having to endure, and I am aware and appalled knowing that it is primarily through the ignorance of people who have decided these precious lives are not worth their space on this earth. My heart is to see their lives being reevaulated. To see them placed back in the arms of love, and returned to a life of hope, and a future that is unlimited in potential.
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