Live from the 212...

It’s funny how when the Lord calls you to something He works in such amazing ways that you would never have expected. As I sit here looking at the Empire State Building out of my window it’s astounding to think about how I got where I am. I’m not just talking about physically in New York City; I’m talking about everything. Living peanuts and a diet coke away from home, spiritually walking with Christ on new turf, and emotionally being drained to a point where I’ve almost become numb to life. Sound fun? It is. I was truly excited about living in New York City for a few months. Among the strange people, big buildings, blinding lights, and amazing influence. I thought it would be the easiest few months of my life. I couldn’t have been more wrong. My first day was a 12-hour move in followed by weeks of waking up early. I mean early. Sometimes at like 4-something to go to Queens, Jersey, or the Upper West Side; it’s been anything but easy. Working 7 days a week from those early hours in the morning to the late nights at Rustin High School had me in a place where I felt I was beyond repair. I was a phone call away from packing my bags and leaving.

The Lord then revealed Himself in ways I never knew He could. Literally in less than 24 hours He taught me a lesson that changed my life forever. These long days, working 7 days a week with hardly any rest weren’t going to get easier. Certainly I could quit. He would provide a plane ticket and a way out. I was free to choose that. Just as I am free to choose anything in my life. I could flee, or I could stay. With my prayers falling on seemingly deaf ears from upstairs, an administration that wouldn’t hear my concerns, and co-workers complaining alongside with me the Lord finally showed up. Quit, and be that man for the rest of my life. Or I could stay, stay and become the man I needed to be. I have been praying for YEARS, my #1 prayer request over the last 4 or 5 years has been that God would make me the man that He wanted me to be. In my moment of defeat, when Satan was ready to proclaim victory and send this beach bum back to the Grand Strand God broke His silence. It was almost audible: “This has been your prayer, do it. It will be hard and you don’t have the power to make it. You don’t have the energy or the strength. But I do. Stay in New York and become the man I’ve made you to be.”

Not only was I being called to stay in New York, but I was told to stay, work hard, and do it without complaining. It’s not going to be easy. The Lord will use the rest of this summer for amazing good. I can sense it, I feel it from inside. That kind of feeling that as people we don’t get nearly enough. These tests and trials that He will provide victory in will show the world his power in my weakness. Through it all He is making me the man that I will become until I meet Him face to face. He’s making me the man that will guide my children, that will be a light for my world, and He’s making me the man that my wife will fall in love with. Without this summer, these trials, and these victories, my future wife would have a weak quitter for a husband. Now she will love a man that knows full on what it means to be filled with the power of Christ.

Love is another subject He is teaching me on as I go through this summer. Hopefully I’ll have more to share on this as it is revealed to me, and some of it may need more clarification later. In fact, I’m sure it will. I’m no expert on love, that is obvious. However, I think that He is also teaching me more about people and what it means to care for them. Love is not making much of someone. Love is not sitting there and talking about another person and exclaiming how extravagantly compassionate, beautiful, caring, funny, self-sacrificing, honest, and pleasurable they are. That’s the opposite of love. That’s selfish conceit. That’s a fool’s ambition. Sure those are great qualities, however it’s quite contrary to what love truly is. The world teaches us that in order to love someone we make much of them. We exclaim these very odious banalities to everyone and prance it in front of people defining it as love. It isn’t. Love is not making much of someone, or the qualities that the Lord has enabled them to possess. We cheapen love by these definitions. No matter how hard we may try, we cannot look for love. It cannot be found by us, it cannot be influenced by us, it cannot be acquired by our own accord. We tend to look to people for love, we pursue people based on various things. Looks, prestige, how much fun we have when we’re with them, and sure those things are certainly important; however, we must realize that most of the time we convince ourselves and confirm our emotions with very little actual assertion.

Love isn’t qualities. Love isn’t being made much of. Love isn’t restricted. Love is a King come down from His throne and placed on earth with human hands and feet that can be pierced. Love is grace when we deserve anything but. Love is being turned from a wretch to a treasure. Love is a dark Friday afternoon and a cross. That is our fortune. That’s what we seek. Love is laboring, striving, fighting, and suffering; even to a point of death to bring someone the one thing that will make him or her infinitely and eternally happy. That is namely the love of Christ. Nothing else matters. We sit in a room and wait on a phone call, we text back and forth for hours, we think and think and think over something we may have said that was right or wrong to someone we seek something more with, or a family member, or just a friend. We are anxious over things that are beyond our own control. Love Christ first. Seek His kingdom first.” But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). Once we learn to let go of everything in this world that we should hate is when He reveals to us our very desires. As this happens it’s funny what your desires become. Notice that we are not called to be bitter and be unkind to those close to us. Quite the opposite really; however, our love for Christ should, in comparison to our love for everything else look as hate because we love Him to such a strong extent.

Let's summarize and pray that it becomes more clear. The love of God is not God’s making much of us, but God’s saving us from self-centered sin so that we can enjoy making much of Him forever. Our love to others is not our making much of them, but our helping them to find eternal satisfaction in making much of God. The only ultimate love is a love that aims at satisfying people in the glory of God. Any love that terminates on man is eventually destructive. It does not lead a person to the only lasting joy, God. Love must be God-centered or it is not the greatest love; it leaves people without their deepest need and their only hope.

When we realize that these important aspects of love are really the only way to love, it is then that we learn how to treat people. It is only then that we can truly give ourselves to another person. We are not our own to give, we are His to give away when we return to Him. We have to completely, unequivocally give up everything that is “us” and turn our full attention to Him before it can be expected that we find some happiness in someone else. We have to stop looking for what, or who, makes us happy and love Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength so that His love is enough. When you think about it, isn’t that the kind of person you want to love? One that could never fully have your heart? Mine is taken, so is my attention. Only an eternal God can fill that eternal desire.