When Love Rains Down

I think they were prophetic.

 

Those words I wrote the day I flew off to Costa Rica for a short term mission trip.

That all we have is our little bit of nothing and just this… God's love.

Because if I had to describe this trip in just one word, that would be it.

Love.

Because really that is all we have. 

We can’t save the world but we can love it.

And we can’t rescue them all but in love we can make a difference for one.

And when the love of God compels us then the love of God directs us and the love of God is what changes us all.

I went on this trip in faith that God had called me to go.  I went expecting to be poured out.  And I was.  But the truth is that when you give God’s love, you get so much more than you gave. 

Because you can't out give God. He loved and so He gave His life for us.  And when we love like Him we give like Him but we are given so much more than we had before. 

And I wonder if we lack true riches in this America because we just don't know that the way to real life, real love, realest real is to first give what you have? 

To open your hand, open your heart and just pour it all out right there, where ever you are.

The way to be filled is to pour yourself out.

And then the miracle happens.

Like the widow who poured out her best, poured out her last bit of oil and flour for the man of God who came asking for a meal.  And she said, "I don't have any bread--only a little oil in a jug.  I am gathering a few sticks to go home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die." 1 Kings 17:12

I am going to eat it and then die.

Listen, we can eat our blessings and then die or we can offer them up.

We can offer us up.  And gain the miracle.

Elijah said to her, "Don't be afraid."

Because really, isn't that what always stops us from following God's voice?

"Go home and make a small cake of bread for yourself and your son.  For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: The jar of flour will not be used up or the jug of oil run dry until the day the Lord rains upon the land."

So she did.

And God was faithful to fill. 

She opened her hand and poured out her best, her all, holding nothing back.

And if God didn't come through she would die.  But if she hadn't poured it all out, offered it up, she would have died anyway.

We will die anyway if we hold on to what we have.

But me, I want to really live.

And God sent the miracle.  And He always does. 

And in the midst of that worship service, as the Ticos and Gringos sang in one language and then two simultaneously, and it felt like the sky was about rip right open in one glorious heavenly celebration, all I could even say was, more Lord.

More of you.

This is what I need.

This is what I want.

More of you Jesus.

More of your love.

And the rain that was falling from that open sky as we worshipped outside under the awning of the church was like some kind of spiritual fire igniting our hearts and welding our hearts together as one people, with one language and One Love.

And all I could think is that this. Is. What. Heaven. Is.

And my heart was full.

Because it doesn’t matter if we come from different parts of the world.  It doesn’t matter if our skin is different colors.  It doesn’t matter if we are rich or poor.  Educated or not.  It doesn’t matter if we even knew each other last week.  We all become one in Christ.

And this Love that overcomes the world, it is our life.

It is our hope.

It is the very fabric of eternity.

Because God is Love.

And here, in this broken place, we get these glimpses of glory.

We get these moments of grace when heaven touches earth and for just a second we can see the hope that our hearts are set on.

Somewhere in the mountains of Costa Rica, my heart was emptied and filled and emptied again.

After ten days which felt like ten years and you’d have thought that I’d known these Ticos for my whole life because I feel like I’ve loved them forever.  And I will. 

Because in when you’re in Christ, the loving never ends.

And standing under sky raining love right down, I’m filled and poured out like water again.