When I was in university I heard about a guy who was giving way all his worldly possessions because ‘God told him to’. I just figured he was suffering from a mental illness. I also hoped I could get in line for some of his CDs.
When I was in Africa, one of our staff members showed me an article about a guy who had sold everything to move to Africa because ‘God told him to’.
I thought both of these people needed to check in with their family physician. Who does that? Who thinks God is talking to them? And who sells all their earthly possessions because of something ‘God’ said to them??
Flash forward 10-15 years.
There’s me explaining to my friends and family that ‘God is telling us to move to Brazil to be missionaries’.
Pretty sure most of my friends put me in the same place I put those two people I wrote about at the beginning. Jen needs to seek professional help, or Jen has been brainwashed.
I get it, years earlier I would have thought the same thing, I did think the same thing.
Phil and I were poised to have a great future, two great kids, Phil had his own renovation business and I was creating a great career in real estate. We lived in a great community, had wonderful friends and a big extended family. We lived in a country rated in the top 3 in the world most years.
What on earth made us give it all up, sell everything and move to a country where violence and corruption are rampant, education is expensive and we didn’t speak the language?
Were we brainwashed? Both of us at the same time? Or were we both, simultaneously suffering from a mental breakdown? Midlife Crisis?
None of the above.
For those of you who really know me, you know that yes, I have changed. But I haven’t become a religious zealot thumping my Bible and yelling ‘repent or the end is nigh!’ If anything I despise the word ‘religious’ and will often correct people when they say, ‘you’re religious’. Which usually gets me an odd look.
Religion starts wars, religion breeds hate, religion loves rules.
Jesus, the one that I have turned over my whole life too, hated all of that.
What Jesus was and is about, and what he has birthed in me, is LOVE.
I didn’t used to love people all that much. I loved those around me, the ones I knew, my family and friends, people I had things in common with especially.
But people who were different from me, quite frankly, annoyed me. People who thought differently or believed differently, I kept at a distance. Not that I was mean or rude to them, I just had no interest in knowing them.
In November of 2002, just a few months after we were married something completed shifted in my heart, and where I used to harbour fear, a need for the next thing, a gnawing unidentified hunger that couldn’t be satisfied was immediately and completely filled.
For the first time in my life it was like a light was turned on. Did I get a download to the meaning of life and everything in it? Sort of. Did I suddenly have all the answers to life biggest questions, no. But the thing was I was suddenly ok with not knowing the reason for everything. I was suddenly able to put my trust somewhere, that no matter what happened someone was driving this thing, someone who did know all the answers was in control and I could rest in that.
I had an inner peace I had longed for my entire life.
I know, sounds crazy, sounds impossible but 17 years later it’s still there and instead of fading, it only grows.
That peace is something that has no price. I used to live with a lot of fear, fear of wars, fear of loved ones dying, fear of disease, fear of the end of the world.
The world is full of a lot of scary stuff these days. It seems that doomsday looms over us, peers at us from around the corner.
Although I can’t say that fear doesn’t rear its ugly head every once in a while, it no longer controls and consumes me. I’m no longer a slave to it.
Why? What’s my secret? Well, I now have somewhere to put that fear, someone to take it to. I can say, ‘I can’t carry this it’s crushing me, please take it from me’ and as long as I remember to ask, He takes it, EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
And then there’s the love. Suddenly, people that used to annoy me became people I really wanted to know, maybe even understand how they ticked even if it was different to me. I love people in a way I didn’t think was possible before. Like really love them.
Especially the ones that look like everyone else has forgotten about, cast aside.
That love is what fills up that gaping void that I tried to fill before with alcohol, friends, new clothes, a better job, the next stage of my life, and on and on and on…..a constant search for something I couldn’t put my finger on but continued to try the next thing hoping that would satisfy it.
That gaping void has a shape, we all have one and I can tell you this, it won’t be filled with anything that has a different shape that what was created to fill it.
Once that love fills up that space, heals the hurts of your past, gives you a sense of meaning and purpose, there’s no telling the crazy things it will make you do.
It is often said that love is the most powerful force on earth, and maybe, just maybe because it isn’t of this earth. God is not just an old man with a beard sitting on a throne judging the world, He is a very real Father who loves his kids with the fierceness of a mama bear.
God doesn’t just love as an action, God IS love.
This weekend we celebrate Easter and for Jews, Passover. For most it’s the season of chocolate and daffodils. Easter and Passover are both about people being freed from slavery, that’s not a coincidence. For Christians, it’s the time we remember this man who gave up everything because of love. He gave up more than a career, a nice house and a neighbourhood. He endured so much more than living thousands of kilometres from those he loved.
He gave up his life so that I could have one.
And then he beat death! That thing we all fear, mourn over and wish we could escape. He died, and three days later came back. More than 500 witnesses saw him, touched him, put their hands in his wounds.
This season we celebrate that we too can be fully alive, no longer slaves to our wrong doings, fear and shame, because of what He did for us. He shouldered all of our wrongs, even though he was innocent, and then he forgave the very people that had beaten, tortured and crucified him.
‘Forgive them Father, they know not what they do’.
Who does that? Who forgives their killer? Who shoulders the entire worlds wrong doings? Was he mentally ill? Was he brainwashed? Midlife crisis?
Or maybe, just maybe, he was God in the flesh, showing us what love does.
This Easter/Passover, if you are struggling, if you are feeling alone, if you have a void and gnawing emptiness that you have not been able to fill, I ask you to just for a minute, ask yourself if maybe, just maybe, I’m not crazy, and their is a God and maybe He wants to give you all the peace and love and meaning that He has given me and countless others who have taken that leap of faith.
Because I can tell you this, it really is just a simple request away, ‘God, if you are real, I need you in my life’.
Happy Easter to all near and far.
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