and here it comes...

last week we had our final class of the year, it was Christian Worldview, during that class we had a small assignment in which we had to answer the question "What are you learning to love?" we had to go through the things we have been 'learning to love' over the past year and during that week of class. i feel like it might be good to use that as my blog this week, to let you know some of the things which have been put on my heart and which i have been working through over the past 8 months (has it really been that long?). so here it is:

To be completely honest, the things which I have most recently been learning to love have come to me not in class, but most recently through our missions’ trip to India. Seeing the people there and being broken for them and over them has opened the eyes of my heart to a whole new world. Many of them are lost and blind to the truth that is waiting for them. They follow so blindly all that they have been taught from birth. There were so many things that we saw there which had both an immediate impact on me and also one which has continued to shape and inform me since returning. There are lessons being taught to me every day which I gather from things we did in those far away places.
A huge lesson that I felt the Holy Spirit teaching me through the convicting words of others was to learn how to love people through anger, even a righteous anger. One can not allow anger against the enemy to blind us from how we need to love those who are also being blinded by that same enemy. Part of how we need to love them is in getting to know them, having a personal relationship with them where they can see the light of the Lord shining inside of us who are children of the living God. Far too often we are kept from having those close, personal relationships with people who are lost because we refuse to look at them, we do not acknowledge that they even exist; we can not truly love people until we have begun to see them through the eyes of the Lord rather than the eyes of the world, which we have. Only when we see them through those heavenly eyes, and have been broken for them the way the Father is broken for them, can we love them like we are meant to, and like we need to if we are going to have a lasting impact on them.
Another thing which I have been challenged with recently is whether or not I have chosen to follow Christ on my own or if it is still simply because that is the way in which I was brought up. That question went through my head momentarily a couple of times this past week as we went through class discussions but it never stayed around all that long. I have seen the faithfulness of God in my own life as well as in the lives of people I know. As Pascal is convinced, it is faith which is a gift from God that provides the proof to what we have come to know. I have faith and I know that Jesus is real and that he Reigns. Again, in India in particular I saw the proof given as a result of the faith of His children, salvation came to families who had been lost in Hinduism for generations, prayers were answered even as we were praying them, strength was provided right when it was needed, and the prayer we prayed for brokenness over the people was answered in a way which brought many of us to tears. Just as Olthuis talks about how we both are and are still becoming, so I have learned and am still learning to love the Lord my God because he is good and not simply because it is what I was taught.
I am learning to love the fact that I can not see my future, that I need to simply rely on God for each and every step that I take. No matter if I can see the ground in front of me or not, I am learning to take the step of faith and know that He will provide a place for my foot to land before I tumble over. So long as I am faithful to Him, He will not let me fall. In following faithfully I am learning to love prayer, learning to surrender all things to Him at all times in joy and thanksgiving because I know that He is good and that He has plans to prosper me, plans which he has had since before my birth. I am learning to love the provision of the Lord, provision which comes in just the amount I need at the time. Just like the Israelites were given food and told to take only what was needed for the time and not try to store up the rest, so I am learning to love how He provides just enough to see us faithfully through and not any extra, that we might be tempted to say we did it ourselves. For on our own we can do no great thing, but through Christ who lives in us we can do anything.
I am learning to love the people around the world who share the same heavenly Father as I do. Even now as I look around at my fellow brothers and sister, I am brought to remember the brothers and sisters whom I was able to meet along our journey, I know that together we form an eternal family; I am learning to love each one as my own blood relative. In fact I am learning to love them more than simply that, for as close a connection as that might prove between two people, it is of this world and I know that the bonds which are made through Christ far outdo any earthly feeling of closeness. I am learning to pray for those all over the planet who live each day far away from home for the cause of Christ, those who face persecution on a daily basis for the sake of the gospel message. To put is simply, I am learning how to love.
The thing from class which stands out the most to me in relation to what I have been learning lately comes from the article we had to read which was written on The Good of a Flourishing Creation: Seeking God in a Culture of Affluence, written by David Warners and Larry Borst. They spoke so much about the wealth of North America, the greed we have in the way that we are constantly using up all the resources of the world, and how the concentration of the people of the world today is so individualistic that we do not see the rest of creation flourishing. In fact, just the opposite, we see the rest of creation falling apart. Again I am drawn back to think of India, seeing the people living in the streets, the many little clusters of slum neighbourhoods, and then my thoughts are brought back here to homes filled with pointless possessions which are acquired simply as a sign of status. Who cares about what the rest of the world thinks of you, if soon enough there won’t be much of a world left? Consumerism has taken hold of us with its nasty talons and we have stopped struggling to get free. Praise the Lord that He has let me see this now; it is my prayer that I do not forget it and go back to that exact way of living! I am learning to love the idea of living simply, of giving to those who are in need rather than fulfilling the desires of my fleshly nature.
To sum it up…I am still a student of life, and of love, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no end to the things which I have been learning over this past year and even in these past few weeks specifically. I am learning about the ways in which I am Miranda, and I am learning still how to become the Miranda that God wants me to be. In all that I am learning, I believe that I have been reminded that I still have much to learn, and that I need to let the love which comes from Christ bind up all those things, that his judgement, wisdom, guidance, and love would be the things I follow as I journey one step at a time into life.