The Unreasonableness of Love

    I was impressed lately by a little book, written by Richard Wurmbrand, during his time in prison in solitary confinement.  He was shut up with God, and the rats, and the stark realities of prison life.  And the sweetness of his communion with God in that place shines out of his writings.  I thought I'd share a portion that really blessed me today, about love.
    "Reason will tell you about the foolishness of the cross.  Jesus was young, handsome, vigorous.  He could have made a good living as a carpenter, or as a doctor of the law.  He could have married and enjoyed life.  Why die to save people who do not want to be saved?  Why start something which will not be accepted, or even heard of, by the overwhelming majority of mankind, and which will be practised only by a few isolated saints?
    Who would conceive such an unreasonable project? Only Paul dared to answer this question.  A chill runs down your spine when you hear the answer.  The Bible is the only religious book to contain such an expression, which must surely be considered a blasphemy by all the religions of the world, including Christianity - "the foolishness of God!"
    Love must submit to being condemned by reason.  I told my missionary friend: "Just follow the promptings of love. Don't try to justify your actions by arguments."
    We in prison use the same unreasonableness.  When we hear the cries of someone being beaten, all the others begin to bang on their doors, "Help! Help! Stop beating!"  There is nobody to hear us, except those who are beating and who now, instead of beating only one, beat us all up, one after the other.
    What is the sense of a collective protest here?  What is the sense of expressing your solidarity with those who are beaten?  It is non-sense, which means that it is pure love.  Love does not think about what it will achieve, what it will gain.  Love does not think at all.  Love does not care about reason.  Why should it?"

    I was challenged by those words.  I long to love like that.  I long to see love like that, lived out in the church and among God's people.  Not just rational, count-the-cost-first love, but unreasonable, irrational love.  Love like Jesus loves us with.  

Richard Wurmbrand

  

أهلاً وسهلاً Greetings from the Land of Language! :)

    Just checking in from the land of language learning ... :) Alot of my time this week has been spent on that - language learning.  Verbs and tense, learning the correct greeting for each situation, learning to read a language that is not based on English characters, and all of the other wonderful challenges. 
    It's been difficult, frustrating, and really exciting, all at once.  Learning a language is not easy, but I am enjoying it immensely! It has given me a new perspective on what it's like to be a missionary among a people who do not speak English.  That feeling of desperately wanting to understand, of stretching brain and ear to grasp even a idea of what is being said, and yet coming away with that awful feeling of missing it all - in spite of those hours of study! 
    I've also been brokenhearted to feel what the illiterate, or those who do not have the Word of God in their own language, feel.  I have a lovely little Arabic Injeel.  (New Testament)  It has a nice black leather cover, and a silk bookmark, and a really neat little zipper around it, and the pages look so crisp - but as I open that precious book, so full of words that could change my life, I come away feeling frustrated.  Because I can read most of the words.  I can sound out those characters.  But what on earth does it mean?!?  Words, sounds, but absolutely no heart understanding.  Arabic is not my heart language.  It means basically nothing to me.
    But all in all, I think this extremely challenging language is finally beginning to make some sense to me.  It's exciting when words keep popping out at me; when after the thousandth time of hearing that word, I can actually pronounce it.  Language learning is hard business.  But so worth the time put into it!  So worth the reward of talking with a native speaker and really being understood; of being able to share the treasures I have found, in somebody's own heart-language.  It's great.  It's thrilling.  I love it!
   
    

Life ... and my thoughts on it

    I've been thinking alot about life these days.  The shortness of life, the sheer joy of it, the tangles and pain of it ... and what my purpose is, while I have that thing called life.  My life has been impacted the most by people who were willing to sell out to God.  They were irrationally reckless, by the world's standards.  They loved radically, served radically, and some of them died radically glorious deaths.  So glorious that it seems strange to call it death.  
    And so I look at these people's lives, and I wonder: what makes somebody like that?  Whatever it is, I want it!  And as my heart has been seeking God, He has continually spoken a single passion into my heart: to live in such a way that everything I do is for His glory.  I don't believe in this separation business - this compartmentalization of walking with God.  If I'm going to live for God, I'm going to do everything for Him, and that includes the laundry and dishes!
    That's been the longing of my heart, especially the past month.  I'm a real person.  I have bad days. And I have really bad days.  I get migraines.  And people annoy me.  Church issues bother me.  Too often my heart gets all wrapped up, and I find myself just living, and plodding along. 
    I don't want to plod along in life! I don't want to waste a second of the life God has given me!  Who knows but that tomorrow I'll die - do I want to come to the end of my life and realize too late that God gave me life so that I could joy in Him, and make Him great? 
    I'm not talking about a plastic life that is all joy and happiness and high spirituality.  Not at all! I'm just longing for a life that is real .. that in pain, joy, or weeping; in school or university or study; whether I spend my life planting potatoes in a field or doing the most spiritual work, my life would radiate the delight and treasure of knowing God.  And that all the people I come in contact with would turn and praise Him. 
    Isn't that what life is about?  I'm becoming increasingly convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that it's not about my particular doctrinal stance; it's not about whether I read Calvin or Menno Simons; it's not about making money or earning people's approval.  Life has been given to me so that I can love God, and delight myself in Him, and make Him known to the farthest reaches of this world - so that they also can know the Treasure I have come to know. 
    And that's what I long to live for.  That's what I want to be about.  That's what I want people to see in my life.  I want to love God with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength.  And I want everyone around me to know Him like that, too. With William Duma, my heart burns with the cry: "Take Your glory, Lord! You become ultimate in my life!" 

Day out with my class in Lebanon...

The above photos are of our class' day out.  We took a vanload of children to Hershey Chocolate Factory, then out to lunch at the park.  It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever been a part of, to pour into these dear children's lives for the Lord! I love it!