It's not until the ones you love become threatened that you fully realize the extent of how deeply you love them. It’s not like you are totally unaware of your love for them when things are going well and you know they are safe, but there is something unique that happens in our hearts…something is triggered when those we love become threatened or in danger.
It’s natural to love when it’s easy...when you run around carefree in their joy and happiness with them.
But what happens when they are burdened?
Do we still love them?
Do we choose to carry that load and experience their hurts and sufferings with them?
We find ourselves confronted with a test...a test of whether we have real Jesus love. By the way, it is not possible to love others with this kind of love in our own strength.
I have talked so much about the loveliness of being face to face with the orphan and the needy. It’s no doubt the greatest gift to love them and to experience the Jesus in them as you are in fellowship and really loving them. But, to say it’s always like riding a bike with the breeze in your face on a trail surrounded with assortments of fall colored leaves dancing in the air is not telling the whole story.
They have great needs all the time. When you recognize your heart aches for them, and you really feel their pain as if you were the one who was hungry or had no place to call a bed of your own…that is compassion. You know you have arrived at real Jesus love for these people when you take the next step and actually stop to pray for them and help them. All glory to God when this happens…we have died a little more of our flesh and the Spirit of God can use us.
We have our hearts broken for what breaks the heart of our Heavenly Father and we put aside our pleasures and comforts...for we now feel the pain of the least of these…we call on the Name of our LORD to move His hand on behalf of these loved ones. There is nothing more rewarding than loving the least of these, and most importantly it is an act of obedience to the Father, but it does position us in a “level red” risk zone for experiencing their hurt. It’s part of it.
I prayed for a genuine, real, and tangible Jesus kind of love for the people in Haiti. Like I said earlier…we can’t love like this in our own strength. God has indeed blessed me with this love and now that the cholera outbreak is surrounding the very ones I love so deeply in Haiti, I am subjected to their pain. I know my love for them is not my own…it is the love of Jesus that breaks my heart to the point of tears.
Pastor Nahum and his family are very close to the outbreak and reports say it is spreading quickly. With an already difficult life of having to carry water from a nearby spring for their everyday needs, the outbreak of cholera has only intensified their daily pressures requiring them to boil all of their water. We'd throw a fit, complain, and find it to be a huge irritation if we had to boil all of our water in our nice air-conditioned homes on our four burner stove tops but for Papa and Mama Nahum this is not just an irritation…it is extremely tedious as they only have two small burners that are started with coal in a small tent which serves as their kitchen.
I have talked with Papa and they are all healthy for now. Please join me in prayer. Our prayers in the name of Jesus can accomplish much and make a huge difference in the lives of our Haitian brothers and sisters.
In Jesus' name, pray God will command His angels concerning Papa and the people of his village in Gilbert, Mirebalais, to watch over and surround them with a shield of protection from this deadly illness.
May we all have real Jesus love for one another.
In Jesus' name, pray God will command His angels concerning Papa and the people of his village in Gilbert, Mirebalais, to watch over and surround them with a shield of protection from this deadly illness.
May we all have real Jesus love for one another.
"Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."
Galatians 6:2
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