A Bigger Heart

This is hard for me to admit. For the past few years of my life, I cultivated a small heart.

It was easy to limit myself. I wanted a safe life, avoiding pain and getting into close relationships with others. I sought deafness and blindness to a degree - "after all, there's so much pain in this world, I can only hear and bear so much of it, right?"

But after going to Thailand, I'm slowly realizing how just how ridiculously small my heart was.

God wanted me to cultivate a big heart.  With a bigger heart, yes - there is increased vulnerability, increased pain.  But it is only a bigger heart that God can truly use.

Please allow me to share with you some ideas from "Disciplines of a Godly man", By R. Kent.

With deafness, I will never hear dischord. But I will also never hear the strings of a symphony.

With blindness, I will never see ugliness. But I will also never see the beauty of God's creation.

Without playing baseball, I would never strike out.  But I will also never hit a homerun to win a game.

Without climbing a mountain, I'll never fall.  But I will also never be able to stand on alpine peak.

Having a bigger heart has its risks but it also has its rewards.  I think God is challenging me even in my life now to see if there are any other spots which I need to expand my heart out to, so that He can use me to pour out his grace into the life of others.

Jesus is a prime example of this.  After all, He gave his precious, sinless life up for sinners like you and me. But he also showed it particularly when He passed through Samaria where he reached out to a Samarian woman. 

"A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) (John 4:7-9, ESV)"

This presented a few barriers. There were cultural, economic, social, gender barriers to name a few. Rabbis did not talk with women.  Samaritans and Jews had no dealings with each other, in fact Samaritans married into and the Assyrians, so they were almost treated like aliens in the Jewish community. There was even an old Jewish prayer that said "do not remember the Cuthites (Samaritans) in the Resurrection" and some other sayings such as "Let no man eat the bread of the Cuthites (Samaritans), for he who eats their bread is as he who eats swine's flesh." So there was definitely beef between Jews and Samaritans.

But Jesus reached out to this woman despite these barriers because He had a love that was genuinely concerned for her salvation.  He knew that she was stuck in sin and needed to be forgiven.  She was thirsting more and more, but could only be satisfied with the living water that only Jesus could give.

Going to Thailand helped me to see this small heart that I've had, and the barriers that I've let keep me away from loving others in my personal life. It is my prayer that God will continue to break these barriers down. That I will genuinely care for those around me and cultivate a bigger heart and be sensitive not to things important to me, but important to God.  

It is not natural to cross barriers. It takes the supernatural heart of Christ.  

Father, give me a bigger heart - a heart like that of Jesus - a heart that cuts through barriers.

A bamboo wall in the village we visited. Jesus' love penetrated this wall - 10 people made professions of faith.

Missions team members praying over a village woman and her child who was sick.

Two of the boys I met during our outreach to the children's home (not ZOE).

Ordinary --> Extraordinary

I'll admit, before this trip, I was worried.  I didn't think I was prepared enough - what if I can't teach the electives well, what if my abilities aren't good enough, what if I can't communicate effectively?

But on the Sunday before our missions team flew out to Thailand, Pastor Gavin gave a brief message on Mark 8:1-10. In the passage, Jesus took something ordinary and did the extra-ordinary.  He was before a great crowd with thousands of people, and had compassion on them because they followed him around for 3 days and they were hungry.  So he took a few loaves of bread and some small fish and multiplied it.  

After hearing this message, I remember having a huge burden lifted off my back. It wasn't about my faults, my abilities, my lack of faith, the language barriers, or anything like that.  It was about God taking the ordinary to display the extraordinary. It was then that I realized that all the doubts I had in my mind were actually good. They brought me to realize I could not do anything on my own. That I needed to have faith that God would take someone ordinary like myself, like each person on my team, and use us to display the extra-ordinary - His love and grace shown through Jesus.

This was most evident on Day 10 when we went to the children's home which was not headed by ZOE. There were about 24 children under only one father and mother as caretakers. 

We weren't sure if they were raised in a Christian atmosphere. We don't know the exact details but they were in a small house with bamboo walls and a thin sheet of aluminum for a roof. The rooms between the boys and girls were divided by a folding wall. Their conditions were horrible.  They were starving - when we brought them dinner, the gobbled it up quickly and we gave them seconds, thirds, some of us even giving our own food away. 

But as we played games with them, sung songs with them, and shared with them the good news that God their Creator loves them, their expressions turned into smiles.  Some accepted Jesus that night!  Just before we left we gave out more things - ordinary things:  food, toys, blankets.  Their faces were shocked with joy.  Our team guide and planner, Betsy, made sure that the kids were left with the most important message: 

"These toys, they will get old and will break. These blankets, will wear out.  The wonderful food left here, will be eaten up and eventually gone. But you now have something that will last forever. A relationship with Jesus! If you have Jesus in your heart, He will never leave you. And you will go to Heaven one day!"

God took the ordinary - toys, blankets, food, and imperfect worryful people (like me) and turned it to extraordinary - to share the love of Christ.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of all my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For Christ's sake then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities, for when I am weak, then I am strong.