Thankful

I'll be honest I didn't really want to start writing a blog, even though I love to write. I thought no one would read it and I would have nothing to say. Which I don't. But God was like, "Love, I have stuff to say. And I'll use you." Which makes no sense. He wants to use us to spread his love. And he does-when we don't even know it. When we're still running after all these other things, He's quietly working in our lives to bring glory to his name and to write us into this love story that is underlying every aspect of existence. So anyways, I start it since I couldn't fail because it was His and its actually touching lives. Which literally takes my breath away. Today my dear friend Brandon called it gorgeous. My heart soared. And my lovely cousin Leia left me a message just to say don't stop. Nick, Ashley, Caroline, Mackenzie, Mom: your encouragement is nourishing to my soul. Not because I am good because I am not. But because He is so so good and his goodness is written all over it. My prayer for this blog is that as you read it you sense the Lord and know that it is a love letter from Him to you.

Today I was sitting up on the 8th floor of the library on a date date with God and the longer I sat, the more I was able to stop thinking about myself and my agenda and my worries and as began to turn my face to Him, He, who had been waiting patiently, began to soak me in His love. I have found that when saturated in the love of Christ, you have this deep desire to pour it out. You know that God works differently than things here because you don't want to hold onto this treasure. It is absolutely clear that in loving others our of the overflow of love with you will somehow lead to more love. And I could watch the campus, hundreds of kids walking by, and it hit me that this deep satisfaction, this savior I have been made whole by, is there's and they don't even know him. Most of them have never even been exposed to the gospel. Yes, most Americans know the "formulaic gospel" the facts of Christianity, but the gospel cannot be told without love. The gospel is love because God is love. So if they have not been loved THAT way they really have never even been exposed to the person of Christ. And I have. And I could expose them to it. Here is the really awful thing I don't want to share at all. I don't want to. Their eternity is at stake, and I'd rather just go to class and do homework and be busy until this very costly grace slowly ebbs from my heart and my thoughts. Because thats awkward and scary and against how things are to really love people. There is no glory in it like their is in feeding the poor and getting good grades and writing. Its the work of Christ. The path down. The path he took. If we accept grace, we have to know that it is costly because it cost us our lives and it cost God his Son. But it is grace because God did not reckon his Son to dear a price for our lives and because it ushers us into the only true life.


Maybe people's lives changed after one interaction with Jesus because Jesus was actually thinking about them and how to love them. Because we have all come to accept the fact that people usually aren't even listening. And we know because we're not. when people talk to me I can't stop about my response or my plans for the afternoon  or what they're thinking of me. But You and I are being made into Him-and we can love people. We can listen. We can care how they are doing. And we can reach the point, only by God's work in us, where our primary concern is the cross and loving people to the point we're their lives cannot be the same ever ever again. Lets do it.