Loving God with Everything

Loving God with Everything
Category: Religion and Philosophy

My cousin Amanda asked me to write a letter for the family Christmas program since I won't get to be there this year. My assigned topic...Loving God with All your Heart, Soul, and Strength.

You know, the first thing I thought when I read the email from Amanda that said she wanted me to write something about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength…and, I quote, "how you feel you are doing this in your life or a time you feel you did this" …I thought, "What makes me worthy to write something like that?" Have I ever really loved God with all my heart, soul and strength? So I started thinking about it…and when you pray for self-discernment… be careful because you just might start feeling pretty wretched.

I had to ask…what does it really look like to love God like that? What does the Bible say? Well, Jesus said in John 13:34-35

-"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."

Well, here we go. I do that don't I? I served dinner to some kids in the dump a few weeks ago. I bought Christmas presents for some girls in troubled situations. I fixed an old widow's toilet yesterday. I'm earning my keep, right?

Let's see what Luke 17:7-10 says about that.

-7 "Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, `Come at once and sit down at table'? 8 Will he not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, `We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"

Looks like I'm back at zero.

In Mark 9:37 Jesus said,

-"Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me."

So receiving children is loving God, right? Well, great! I do that all the time! Still sitting at zero, based on Luke 17, but at least I receive children, so I must be loving God a little.

Luke 6:30

-"Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back."

Oooops. Now I'm at negative 18, and that's just yesterday after church. Pretty easy to receive the ones I know, or the ones I go to receive…but the ones at every intersection that come up asking for money just get to be a bother. And the adults are even worse…stinky and drunk. I shouldn't give them money right. They'll just get stinkier and more drunk.

That's not what Jesus said though.

Matthew 5:42

-"Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you."

Matthew 25:40

-"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me."

So apparently yesterday I wagged my finger at Jesus and told Him not to wash my windshield because I didn't want to give him 6 cents. And the day before that I didn't give him a ride because he was too high on glue (he was only 12 that day.)

So I was thinking about writing this thing for the family play and realizing that I don't know what it is really like to truly love God with everything if I can't even love people on the street just a little.

Then I heard a song on the radio called "De Tal Manera."

It goes like this (It's translated later.)

De tal manera me amo
Que su vida no escatimo
Hasta el final el se entrego
Y a la muerte fue porque me amo

De tal manera me amo
Que no hay forma en que poder pagar
El precio de su gran amor
Pero toda mi alma quiero dar

Por su amor yo viviré
De su amor yo cantare
Con mi Jesús caminare
Porque el me amo a mí

Por su amor yo viviré
De su amor yo cantare
Con mi Jesús caminare
Porque el murió por mi
Le seguiré.

Which translates to…

Of such a way he loved me
That his life did not curtail
Until the end I am delivered
And to the death he went because he loved me

(Basically meaning His life alone was not enough to save me…it took his death, too...as I understand it)

Of such a way he loved me
That there is no form that I can repay
The price of his big love
But all my soul I want to give

For his love I will live
Of his love I will sing
With my Jesus I will walk
Because he loved me

For his love I will live
Of his love I will sing
With my Jesus I will walk
Because he died for me

I will follow him.

And that's when I realized that it doesn't matter that I don't love Him perfectly.

It doesn't matter that I don't love everybody else perfectly.

I am worthy to write about loving God.

…because He loved me perfectly enough to forget my imperfections.

And that's why I chose to follow Him.

Love you all and Merry Christmas,

Eli

Butterflies

Here is a praise. We had the meeting with Pastor Manuel today, and I had mentioned in the original version of my last blog that there was a possibility that we could not fully trust him and I had requested prayer about the situation and our meeting with him. It turns out that everything was just a misunderstanding due to some work being arranged that spanned 4 people and 2 languages...so he really is trustworthy after all. He also asked that we all made sure to clear his name with anyone we spoke with about the situation beforehand, so I needed to post an apology to honor that in case you read the original version before I edited out that part.

Amazing sign of how creation speaks to the majesty of God...as we were all going to the meeting, the air around Los Cedros and the surrounding area was filled with literally tens of thousands of white butterflies (I drove through them for at least 2 kilometers and the school grounds where we met were covered in them). I saw it to be a sign of peace and restoration.

Final del Año Update

Here is a summary of what has been going on lately.

I moved again. Now I live in Los Cedros (20 km outside Managua). I'm on a six acre banana farm where my shop and school is. I have a little casita out front that will be the office and showroom eventually too. Right now it is entirely unfinished. I just have a hammock, no electricity, and I have to walk about 100 yards for running water. Most of my expenses will go to making it livable. I love it though! It feels like what I felt led to come here for is finally starting. I am working with a group called Trinity Development. They are pastors and businessmen from both Atlanta and Managua that had the idea that to change a community you needed to place a thriving business in the area and become part of that community (that way you aren't just giving from the outside, but helping change from within), then educate the people of how to work in your business. So it is a school and a cabinet mill. We will be offering classes on marriage, finance, and English in addition to the carpentry classes. We will also do a half day community service project once a week with the students/employees. As of right now we have all the tools in place, and hope to take our first students at the end of January when school starts back here. We have already done entrance exams and orientation, and we plan to do a round 2 of that next week.

The players of Trinity that need prayer are:
Greg Elam (President)
Mike Elmer (Operations Manager)
Roger Keeling (Silent Partner from Atlanta...but lives here, he has developments on the Pacific Coast that are going to be clients)
Armando ? (Personnel Manager (That's the best title I can think of for him...Armando is a God send. He does a little of everything and is good at it.)
Jorge ? (Nica Silent Partner)
Ben (Nica Silent Partner)
They hired an accountant while I was in Costa Rica last week, and I haven't met her yet.
and me (Shop Manager/Teacher)

also we have been working with local pastor (Pastor Manuel) for lots of things. This is our most urgent prayer need, as we have a meeting with him tomorrow about his future role with us. Also we are having the mayor over for lunch and a facility tour tomorrow.

For me the last couple weeks have been mostly filled with arranging tool purchases and material suppliers, shop setup, researching candidates, and translating meetings for Greg.

In other news. I still try to make myself available to do the maintenance at Casa Havilah, and try to visit the girls at least once a week, but that has become more difficult since I moved, and my Land Rover spent a couple weeks in the shop. I have been giving my tithes to help buy the food for the girls there.

And the last thing was I spent my Saturday afternoons volunteering with the scholarship program, they are now finished for the year. A praise from that though, is that Romolo got saved a couple weeks back! He is like a different person, you can see it in his eyes. And he and Miguel have moved in with Pastor Ramon, who is going to lead a Verbo church plant in La Chureca. They are really thriving in such a healthy environment...so big ups to God on that one!

That's kinda the rundown.

Much Love,
Eli