Since being in Colombia I often asked myself how do I love other people? Out of a society where everybody looks for their own interests and tries to get the best out of everything I didn't know how to love others. I know God loves us so much that He gave His son for us and how Jesus loved other people way back in the past. But how does it look like today?
So i went and sought God for it to show me how to do it and for opportunities to put the theoretical knowledge into actions.
God is faithful and in a prayer meeting of the church in Santa Marta the pastor talked about the most valuable gift we can give to other people - Jesus. Often poor people ask for money, we don't have money with us and we send them away, but at least what we can do is to pray for them and talk about Jesus. One day later God gave me the opportunity to do this and it was the first lesson I got on my journey to love others.
Obviously I got reminded on the teachings from Norm Wakefield in Training, when he spoke about God's kind of love- to give and to be used, not to get or to use others. To get a deeper understanding I read his book 'Equipped to Love' and learned how to build idolatry free relationships.
My theoretical foundation was set, ready to show it in deeds.
In a Devotion we played a game with the children in where they needed to pick up peas by sucking them on the end of a straw, walking through a little obstacle parkour and putting them into a cup. Most of the time the peas fell down and they had to go on their knees to pick it up again to finish the task.
This is how I felt when we visited homeless people in a big old house provided by the government. We went there to proclaim God's kingdom and to hand out food, toilet paper and soap. Getting out of the car some little and dirty girls already waited for us and wanted to play with us. I grabbed some boxes to carry upstairs for an excuse to not play with them.
We walked into the house and we met in a stinky and unclean patio. Four to six people are living in a small dirty room without beds or toilets. Sickness, prostitution, noise, crying people and more horrible circumstances are part of their daily lives. I stood in the corner and was shocked, but remembered what journey God brought me on.
So what can we do here without love? Paul writes in 1.Corinthians 13:2 that we can move mountains, but without love we are nothing! Same as in the game I needed to bow down on my knees, pray for God's help and jump into this humbling process. Playing with the dirty children, hugging them, loving them and showing them that they are normal humans.
We often see being a Christian as a sacrifice. NO, it is the biggest treasure we can give to others and this evening gave me joy that I haven't had for a long time! It is also an amazing opportunity to love like Jesus does- unconditional and without expecting something back.
God teaches me how to have an idolatry free relationship with others and I pray that he will take me deeper to live this completely out.