He Loved Me First

                Have you tried putting on leg weights?  I suppose these are often used by athletes and body builders.  There are times that I use them too!  I’m not the body conscious type but Oh Yes!  I got to use leg weights on many occasions like services.  Unlike the common ones, mine is magical.   They are invisible and are territorial.  They are as heavy as gold that the pain of carrying them runs up to my chest.  They target not my legs but the muscles of the heart.  They usually appear when I’m off to serve or when there i a Brev activity and I just don’t feel like going.

         I believe all of us undergo this stage especially after our honeymoon stage in serving the Lord.  When I was told that following the Lord is not just a bed of roses but a road full of crosses, I did not believe it.  My mind could not actually comprehend how a person would give up such an elating experience of discovering God and learning to love Him.  I thought to myself, even if such a depressing time would come, I would never give up serving.  I was happy and that gave me a reason to commit myself in serving my fellow youth.  I wanted the young to discover what I did.  I wanted them to feel what I felt and that it was worth sacrificing a lot to live in a world where Christ was the center.  I was so idealistic and radical.

                There were indeed ups and downs and the temptation of quitting.  However, I would always recall how happy it was to love the Lord.  Also, ate Ruth Garcia’s (a member of my former community) words would always echo on my mind telling me that whenever there were such temptations, it only meant that Jesus has a surprise for me and something wonderful would happen so the enemy would keep me from coming.  My heart then became tougher.

                Years passed and whenever those magical weights would burden me, the commitment I had to love and serve the Lord as well as those thoughts would help me release from their grip.  But there came a time when the clutches of those magical weights were so tight and heavy that all the positive thoughts seemed to have no effect anymore.  I simply got tired and wanted to give up.

                During my prayer time, I would cry out and ask the Lord, “Why do I feel this way?  Where are the zeal and that burning desire to serve  You?”  That moment, I questioned my “emotional why.”

                “Emotional why.”  I borrowed this term from some renowned speakers.  It means your deep reason, your hunger, your drive – it is that powerful force inside that makes you move with passion.  In every dream that we have, we must never  lose that “emotional why” or the purpose why we are trying to achieve it.  Otherwise, it will be very easy to forget and not work on the dream.

                So there I was, begging the Lord to let me rediscover my “emotional why.”  “Why am I still here?  My closest friends are no longer around in the community...yet why do I have to stay?  I am so broken, rejected, misjudged and persecuted...should I still care?  It would be easier for me to quit, forget everything, think of new dreams, and move on.  But why do I keep on coming back?  You know that I love You, I just want to love You the way I loved You before.”

                As I pondered, like a gentle breeze, the answer came, “Is it all because you love Me?”  Then I realized, as I looked back on the first moment I committed myself in serving the Lord, that the reason why I learned to love God was primarily because HE LOVED ME FIRST.  My “emotional why’s” emanated from Him loving me first.   “My dear Child, I love you just as you are,” came the Words. 

                The great love that He has for me is the reason why I can’t let go.  It was not merely because I love Him but because I wanted to be loved back to the fullest.  The God of love can only fill up our tanks more than enough to keep us going in life.  His love is just too great that it draws me back to Him even if I fall most of the time.  I cannot deny myself of the love of God because I need Him and I know that He loves me unconditionally.  He doesn’t need my love because He is already full of it.  In fact, it is so overflowing that He cannot but give it to us.  It is His joy to love us even if we do not put too much effort in loving Him. 

                I realized every service that we render is all grace.  It is His way of giving us the opportunity not to burden us to prove our love for Him but rather, every service is an occasion for us to celebrate His love for us.  In celebrating, He calls us to give out our best so we can be happy.  He allows us to use our gifts to the fullest as His affirmation that we were created with so much goodness and at the same time share these to others while we serve them.  When we express our love for Him in return, He considers it His bonus – consoling His suffering heart for loving us unconditionally.  When He sees us loving others the way He did, He is more than pleased.

                Now, I have rediscovered why I am here sharing how the Lord is working in my life through the talents He has given me—He loved me first in spite of my sinfulness and unworthiness.  And as I express back my love for Him in my little ways, I am hoping that He be consoled and have mercy on my soul. 

               

TrulyRichClub.com - Do You Want to Gain Financial Wealth and Spiritual Abundance at the Same Time?

Why I had to Quit...

“So you’re working there? Wow! Salary must be high. Great medical benefits you got there. Sosyal ka!” These are just some of the usual remarks I get whenever I was asked where I worked. Funny that though it seemed like I had one of the most privileged jobs in town, I had the guts to actually quit and choose something that was totally opposite of what I had.

For many years after serving full time as a Brev, I tried to venture on a career that was appropriate to what I was expected to be. I transferred from one company to another hoping that I will have the fulfilment I was looking for – maybe like pleasing my parents or getting the applause I wanted from people. Unfortunately, since my first secular job, something kept on bothering me. I felt that I was tiring myself running on the wrong track; thus, I was getting nowhere. Depression kept on creeping into me until I found myself facing a blank wall. It was totally dead end for me...nothing! Yet I felt that there was something more if only I would listen to the voice within.

Ah yes! The Voice! Many, if not all, usually fail to listen to the voice within. Simply put it, that is the will of God buried in our hearts even before we were born. Due to a lot of pressures following the standards of this world, we fail to reach our dreams and innermost desires. I read somewhere that our innermost heart’s desire is actually the will of God in our lives. Once we fail to follow it, we lose our way ending up unfulfilled and lonely.

Getting sick and dragging myself to work every day eventually made me think. “Why am I wasting my time here welcoming death earlier than expected when I can live a life full of joy despite its hardships?” I thought, “Well, I have a good salary and the job is too simple...” But then I recalled one of my favourite passages in the Bible which changed my whole life ever since I committed to our ministry. “If anyone wants to come with me, he must forget himself, carry his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his own life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Will a person gain anything if he wins the whole world but loses his life? Of course not! There is nothing he can give to regain his life.” (Matthew 16:24-26)

I thought I found my life and was able to blend in with the secular set-up that I had. I thought I was preparing for a new chapter in my life that I had to lie low in the ministry and simply hand it over to the next batch. But then I found myself dying instead. I stopped dreaming. The secular scenario though easier to follow did not fill my heart with joy. It was a wake-up call when I recalled our Master’s Words. Indeed being in the ministry meant tiring myself unpaid; bearing the unbearable; loving the unlovable; suffering persecutions and being misinterpreted most of the time; yet if these are ways for me to give back somehow the Love of God that’s burning in my heart and to fulfill my dreams, then let it be so. I wanted to be successful in my life and to do that, I had to quit. I wanted to live...again.

They say quitters are losers. However, at this point, I suppose not all quitters are losers. Sometimes we have to quit so we can win. It takes humility for us to quit – accepting that there are things that cannot be and that there is Someone Who has to take charge instead of fighting it all out by ourselves. So when you feel like you are not making it in life or maybe you feel you are in your most terrifying state, quit...let go...let God...so you can live. God will take care of you. 