Epic Crew Breakthrough

Wow! So God never ceases to amaze me with His awesomeness. He always seems to show up in ways that you least expect it. As the semester winds down, it's crazy just to sit back and reflect on the craziness that God has orchestrated. Speaking of orchestra - totally random, but I'm going to say it anyway - so I've been listening to a classical music lately especially when I'm studying. It might seem kind of nerdy, but I find it to be very relaxing. I remember I would use to listen to the classical music station on the radio when I was doing my calculus homework in high school. Haha it was legit! I'm determined to play Mozart music to my children one day so that they will grow up to be geniuses haha. Anyway, as I listen to classical music especially orchestras, I am blown away by the complexity of the music. It blows my mind away how one person could come up with musical masterpieces so complex. As I listen to the music, I am reminded how God is so much bigger and more complex than anything any human can come up with. Crazy!

Anyhoo, tonight was a pretty crazy night. I really feel like we stepped into some kind of breakthrough with our Epic crew tonight. Lydia, one of our Epic friends invited us over to her house to have dinner with her mother and Rick and Fran Love. Rick and Fran Love were the former International directors of Frontiers, a missions group focused on reaching the Muslim community. In other words, they were a big deal! It was such an awesome experience to hear their hearts on missions and their insight into the things God is doing around the world. They have such amazing hearts, and they were so gracious in taking time out of their busy schedules to have dinner with a group of college kids.

The things we talked about were amazing. One of the things that really got me excited was the brief conversation I was able to have with Rick about the Philippines. Rick has been all over the world and lived in Indonesia for many years. He has a special heart for reaching the Muslim community. And he talked some about Filipinos working in the Middle East. As soon as he mentioned this, i got super excited because one of the things God put on my heart over the summer was the role that Filipinos could possibly play in reaching Muslims and bringing the gospel back to Jerusalem. One of the things I have been thinking about doing is looking at the impact of the Filipino Diaspora in places such as the Middle East, and my heart has been to see God use Filipinos in these places to spread the gospel. As I told him about my interest in the Philippines, he began to tell me about how these things were happening with Filipinos in the Middle East! Filipinos were being raised up to reach the Muslim community in places like Saudi Arabia! I always thought I was crazy in thinking about those things because I had no idea how legitimate it was. But it was such a crazy confirmation to know that things like this are already happening.

The Loves also talked about racial reconciliation and the beauty of seeing different cultures and ethnicities worshipping God in their own unique ways. It was so cool to hear him talk about the cool ways different ethnicities worship God and the importance of recognizing and working toward this diversity especially in the Western church. Here in the West, we have become so set on worshipping and understanding God in a certain way. Even in our mission work, we tend to relay our Western conceptions of church onto other people without taking the time to understand the beauty and complexity of their own cultures. We also got to talk about some deep-rooted issues dealing with evangelism. We often go into evangelism with wrong motivations, and we fail to recognize just what evangelism means. He reminded us that the root of the word evangelism means "good news." We often lose sight of the fact that the heart of evangelism is "good news."

But I think one of the things that I was really convicted of tonight was the idea of loving others. I mean we hear all the time. We have to love our neighbors as ourselves. Loving other people is such an important concept. And yet, too often, we love people with an agenda. We love people so that they will follow Jesus. There is nothing necessarily wrong with this, but the Loves brought up the difficulties they faced in reaching the Muslim community. They were confronted by the fact that they would only love people if they followed Jesus; however, when people weren't following Jesus anymore they wouldn't show them they same kind of love.

When they said this, I was instantly convicted. I look at so many situations in my life when my love for them has been contingent upon them meeting my expectations. I only love people when they do the things that I expect them to do. I only care for them and keep up with them when I see growth and transformation. But whenever people are not meeting my expectations or aren't loving Jesus anymore, it's like I don't love them as much. And it's really crazy to think about this concept especially in thinking about what parents have to go through. I realized the hardships that many Christian parents face in raising kids. So many parents work so hard and do so much for their kids, but so many times things don't turn out how they expected. I heard examples of this tonight, and as I think about it now, it grips my heart.

I am beginning to realize so much of what it means to love people without agenda. I mean I always thought I knew about this. I mean ya, we are supposed to love people no matter what they do and no matter what the circumstances. I think this is sometimes easier when we are first meeting people. We meet a person, and we want to love them no matter what they do or who they are. This is a significant first step. Then as we love and care for this person, we see them grow and get excited about loving God. They do and say all the right things, and even if they don't, you see significant growth, so it makes you happy. When you see this, you love them even more. But lately, I have been realizing that it is so hard to love people who have shown so much potential and so much growth in loving Jesus who all of a sudden don't show that same amount of interest and enthusiasm about knowing about God. What happens when those people who have grown so much hit speed bumps, and don't follow Jesus the same way you used to. Do you still love them the same? Our love for people shouldn't change, but in my human flesh, I realize that I make judgments based on how people act and how they respond to me. I often think about how selfish people or how ungrateful they are for not responding to the love that I have shown them. But then I realize that I'm the one being selfish in wanting that kind of recognition and appreciation in the first place.

And then there's the whole issues of parents. I know I have a hard to understanding how my parents have loved me at times. I went through a somewhat rebellious period in my life, and yet my parents never checked out on me. They were there to love me through thick and thin. There were definitely some hard times along the way, but they have loved me a long the way. Then there's the story of loving parents who love and care for their kids so much even though they break their hearts. How does that even work? How can you do that?

It's even crazier to think about God and the crazy love He has for us. We have let Him down so many times and haven't always loved Him fully, but He has always been there for us. When I remember this, I feel like a jerk for being so angry and frustrated with the people in my life who I feel "let me down." I've let down my parents so many times, yet they still love me. Even more so, I have let down God so much, and yet his love never changes. I guess it was awesome to get this perspective once again and see just how big and awesome God's love really is. This is a definitely a lesson that never gets old.

But getting to the heart of this matter, I really felt like tonight was a breakthrough of sorts. Tonight, five of us from Epic got to sit down and have dinner with friends and mentors of an older generation - our parents generation. It was so amazing to hear their unique insight and experiences. So many times, I know I get into the mentality that I am a young visionary with a plan to change the world. I often forget that there have been others before me who have had similar ambitions. It was so good to hear their wisdom and see their openness to hearing the things God is doing in our lives. It was cool because while we learned so much from them I think they were really encouraged by us as well. This is a breakthrough because this is the kind of thing that I have always wanted to do - bridge the generational gap with young and old sharing their stories and experiences. I remember Kelly and I talking about this kind of thing when we first started Epic a year ago. I have even heard our Crusade campus directors talking about this concept. They have wanted adults in the community to take in students, share a meal with them, and exchange stories. We did that tonight without knowing what we were stepping into. It just kind of happened.

Thank you God! This night was seriously an amazing blessing. Not only did we get to hang out with some cool adults, but we also got closer as a group as well. I mean its 1am on a Sunday morning, and we are hanging out together while studying in the library. Who does that? We are seeing some crazy transformation. And it's nothing that I could have orchestrated or come up with in a million years. Life is like a crazy symphony and God is orchestrating everything to perfection. All we gotta do is play our part and let the complexity of his plan unfold around us. I sure have no idea what is going on, but I feel so privileged and honored to be a part of it.

God,
Thank you so much that you are a God who works in mysterious ways. You never cease to amaze me! Thank you for the lessons you teach me in the places that I would least expect it. Tonight, I want to lift up to you the parents of this generation. God, I pray that they would remain steadfast in your love as you have remained steadfast in your love for us. I thank you for the parents who have remained faithful in loving their children even when their children break their hearts. God,you said that you would turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the hearts of the children back to the fathers. So tonight, we pray that you would bring the prodigals home. Lord, bring back the prodigal children back to their parents. Lord, we also pray for the children who don't have parents to love them. May they know tonight that above all else you love them. But we pray for their parents as well. Your promise is two-fold - the father's would turn to their children and the children to their fathers. So we pray for a special impartation of that tonight. After hearing the brokenness of parents tonight, we just want to lift up the children and pray that you bring them back to you. And in knowing the pains of this fatherless generation, we pray that you would break off the orphan spirit and return the father and mothers back in loving relationship with their children. Teach us how to love without agenda Lord. May we love people through the good times and the bad even when they aren't following after you. Thank you that you showed us what this looks like in sending your Son even in the midst our sin and depravity. Help us to never lose sight of who you are. Thank you Abba Father. You are soo goood! We love you. In Jesus Name, Amen!