Lord, I Need You

One morning over the break, I was reading James 5, the warning to rich oppressors. Verse 4-5 says, "The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence..." I had a dream, sort of, of people I know crying out with anguish written all over their faces, "Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me?" I don't even know how to handle that. How do I live with that knowledge? I want to share my faith, I want to live it. I know actions prove my faith, but I don't want to hesitate to "share my faith" (I've grown to dislike that term. How dare I think I can choose to whom I "share" my faith? Its not mine to share, it is the Lord's. It is more giving away my faith). I want to learn how to display God's glory and salvation through both my words and actions.

Seeing the news coverage on Japan today, my heart breaks. I saw a little boy being carried out of the rubble, and I just wanted to hold him. Hearing about families who are broken apart, some swept into the sea, I want to run to them and be with them and show them the hope that is Jesus. Not that He makes life easy or our kind of "perfect," but that He is there, and His heart breaks, and He loves us more than we can know, and He is all we can run to.

Its hard, too, to see a friend struggle to know how to be good, when this friend doesn't know Jesus. This friend reaches out and loves in ways that blow me away and set an example for me. Yet this friend doesn't know the real reason for these things, doesn't know the freedom that is in Jesus, doesn't know what it means to do those things not because its "good" but because Jesus loves us and we must pour that back out. If this friend knew that, I can't even imagine what their life would look like.

I know such love from the Lord. I know what it means to have Him when I have nothing else, when I don't understand, when I wonder and doubt and worry and fear and rejoice. And I want to run to these people who don't know that - it breaks my heart that people don't know that - and I want to tell them and show them.

I don't know what to do with this. I pray that the Lord would teach me how to live like this my last few months of school. This summer, I will (hopefully) have a tangible way of doing so back in Hungary. But I don't want to live like that just when I'm specifically "doing missions." I want it to be an inextricable part of me. I pray that I would fix my thoughts on Jesus (Hebrews 3:1) and that I would live out Matthew 28:19-20. Lord, teach me to love as You do; give me Your eyes and Your ears and Your heart.

*I promise I will do a Spring Break post soon. It was seriously one of the best weeks of my life. I will post pictures and stories very soon!