Today I experienced a very cool thing. There is this guy that goes to my church as far as I can tell he is the epitome of the word “servant”. Whenever a call for help goes out he is there. If he sees someone needs assistance and it’s something he can’t do he’ll let others that can help know. He’s quick with a smile and a greeting. A few from his church recognized this and wanted to say thank you so they put together what we at the Upside Down Group call an “Encouragement Party” They had people write Thank you notes and send them to him throughout the week then today he was invited to someone’s house for lunch and while he was there all these people began showing up. It didn’t take long for him to realize he was in the middle of a party and was the guest of honor. He was blown away and had a smile on his face that stretched from ear to ear. Now it turns out that this guy had been struggling with some stuff as well and the party is exactly what he needed. It’s not why they threw it but the timing was perfect. This is a great example of what I was talking about last week. “LOVE” in this case love reigned supreme. Mike serves others not because he has to but because he wants to and he wants to because God has placed a love for others in his heart. Mikes family (Re-church) recognized what he does for others and showed love by giving him this party. Nobody was out anything maybe 15 minutes to write a note of Thanks and another hour to join a party (Big Sacrifice) and Mikes day if not week was made his spirits lifted. This my friends is what life in Christ is all about. It’s about taking the time to serve one another. When we serve we love. God is Love.
A couple hours later a group of friends got together for dinner to celebrate the promotion of someone in the group. She had just been offered her dream job and her friends wanted to celebrate with her. That is yet one more example of “Love” Rejoicing with those who rejoice. Of course that’s the easy half of love isn’t it. We don’t do it enough but when we do we are always glad we did. It’s great fun making another smile. The tough part is remembering to mourn with those that mourn yet we are called to this as well. We are called to be “Light” in a dark world. We are called to love. We are called to show love even when it’s tough. As I said last week that is now my goal to walk in love but what does that look like? How do we “Walk in Love”? How do we follow Gods lead? You just read two examples. Do you want to see more? I want to show you. Here is how I plan to do it. Throughout my little road trip every time I updated this blog it was with what God had been showing or teaching me during the week. Now that I’m home I think I’ll mix it up a bit. I don’t expect God to stop so at times I will continue with the “Lesson” type posts. However what I expect to begin seeing with my new focus on “Modeling Gods love” is incredible examples of his people living it out. So even more often I will be writing about just that. What Gods people are doing in his community to show his love. I may write a little about things I was able to do but hopefully I’ll be able to spend more time writing about his community and what they are doing. I pray that in turn this will inspire each of us to step away from fear and into love. The more we are able to do this the better our world becomes. I believe that our community can change drastically overnight when “Love” becomes the driving force. Looking at my calendar it is now April 11 three and a half months into the new year. If each of us committed to model Gods love throughout the rest of the year our city would be turned upside down and if our city flips so does our state. We have the power to change the world my friends it’s about time we harness that power and turn our world “Upside Down” as well.
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