compelled by love

Reading this book "Tea with Hezbollah" by 2 daring brothers journeying through the middle east in search of responses to the greatest teaching ever given... "but I tell you, love thy enemies and pray for them..". The journey would take them through a war-torn Lebanon to the homes of Muftis, Sheiks, Hezbollah fighters, Hamas and other enemies of state just to shed light on the responses to this most controversial teaching - the very same teaching that brought Jesus to the cross!

Yesterday as I was reading how a phrase the co-author heard on a park bench, "you will love the Arabs" brought him and his wife with 2 young kids to Beirut in the middle of war, I started crying. we have been asking the Lord to speak to us about what we are supposed to be doing here in NYC, where we too are surrounded by Muslims of all origins. What the heck are we doing here?! where are we going? what in the world... In the past days I have been fighting the urge to justify my existence in the very familiar ways of career, marriage, ministry, connections, visions, building His Kingdom one brick at a time... but wait, His Kingdom is not built, it is given, revealed, manifested, accepted, stepped into, by faith, through LOVE. I haven't felt a desire for anything like this in a long time. I'm desperate for a change, of heart.

In the afternoon we ran across the message at Time Square Church, with a preacher from Alabama. He spoke on Job 29. The very passage that spoke about loving the poor, caring for the widows and orphans. And the JOY of the Lord rests on those who will give themselves away. I started to fantasize living in the worst neighborhood and living humbly to serve the people around me. maybe I will live on the streets...hmm, does that mean I will have to cut my hair, get new sets of ragged cloth. I don't know, whatever it takes. Thoughts of grandeur flying across my mind. Then came the voice of my more down-to-earth and get-to-business friend, "should we go prayer walk the neighborhood East Harlem and see what the Lord would have for us?" days ago, the Lord has given him a vision for East harlem - the infamous Spanish Harlem David Wilkerson had frequented in his days. I would love to tell you that I jumped at the suggestion, but thoughts of the poor did not excite me. I'm sorry to report, my heart is very cold and unwilling, my flesh is very weak. But I have made this decision in my heart. I will live love the poor as my Jesus has called me to, and in the process of it I will experience His love like I never experience it before. and little by little He will have my heart, and more and more I will learn to love. until the day when I can give my life away for the worse of my enemies.

Looking for an apartment in East Harlem. some of friends of ours are aparently looking for places to stay also. who knows, we may have a full house before we even find the house! =)