May God's Love Overwhelm You Today!!

Oh man. I start this blog post with an overwhelming joy and thankfulness for how BIG God's love is!!

First, I want to update you on my challenge for community. As I have stepped outside the box a little, and tried to make community greater in all aspects of my life, I have seen a great sense of joy and love overcome me, along with some interesting observations. Here is just an excerpt of one of my days:

7:45 am: Grabbed a coffee at Starbucks. As I ordered, the gentleman said "Are you sure you don't want anything else? Like, maybe a sandwich to split with me?" A good way to start off my challenge for community in all places :)

8:00 am: Get on the bus. Before getting on the bus, i noticed about 8 people waiting, standing individually and alone. I practically ran to the bus that day to make it, but noticed this as I walked towards the station. 8 individual people with their own stories and own lives, standing in their own comfortable spots. I wonder what it would be like if there was a greater sense of community and love between these regular bus riders?

9:00 am: Talk to my first customer of the day. Sometimes when I talk to customers all day, I say the same things over and over and don't completely embrace the opportunity to really love each customer. I tried to be more aware of that today, and show a deeper sense of love and compassion for each customer. To say the least, it was reciprocated.

12:00 pm: Lunchtime. I went to buy a sandwich at a local shop (I promise I don't stop for Starbucks and lunch every day-- I was just completely out of food at my apartment...). The man making my sandwich had his music on so loud that he could hardly hear what sandwich I wanted. So needless to say, it was a little difficult to communicate here.

6:00 pm: Went to change my car battery Spoke to the man taking care of my car and he was a very friendly guy-- just casual conversation "how's the day been going?" etc. As I waited for my car to be fixed, there were three of us sitting in the waiting room. Looking back, this is a time I totally missed an opportunity to embrace community. Each was reading their own magazine, on the phone with someone else, etc, doing their own thing.

7:00 pm: Went to the grocery store. The girl that helped me at the register started saying something and said "man, i sound like a script," I responded telling her I was in a customer service position and sometimes can relate to that, which led to more conversation and a greater sense of love because we could relate to each other.

7:30 pm: Went to Best Buy because my iPod was not working. The man didn't seem like he wanted to talk, but I decided to be that annoying customer and try to talk to him anyways! Like other encounters today, I noticed that when love was shown and love was reciprocated.

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Evaluation of the Challenge So Far:

-I noticed many encounters in the day where people preferred to keep to themselves. We are very individualistic people (especially as Americans), and tend to shy away from uncomfortable or potentially awkward conversations. Like the man who turned up his music when making the sandwich, which allows a conversation to be avoided all together.

-I also noticed that when I showed a greater love towards others, the love was usually in some way reciprocated... which leads me to another thought that a very close friend made earlier this week in our small group. As we talked about how easy it can be sometimes to love friends, family, those who are closest to us, she asked "if they didn't show love to us, would we still love them back? Would we still reciprocate that love?" So in times that we do not receive love from others, even though it's hard, can we still love them anyways?? Even if love is not given to us, we can ask God to still show us how to deeply love someone even though it seems impossible or difficult. Now it's just the application part that gets hard.

So far-- those are my observations on this new challenge. Good stuff.

On another note, another youth leader and friend, Leah, and myself took a few of our jr. high and high school girls to a conference called Adored, where the focus was on how much each of the girls are adored by God. It was such an incredible weekend, where we were able to grow closer with each other, and to the Lord. I'm overwhelmed by how big God's love is for us-- that He made each of us in His image and loves us just AS WE ARE!

So many times we look for self-worth in worldly things-- success/money, fashion, popularity, the friends we choose, our image, etc., but ultimately, Jesus Christ is the only one who can truly satisfy our hunger eternally.

"No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." - 1 John 4:12

My prayer today is that you too will be overwhelmed by God's love for you, just as you are-- that you will be made complete by His great and unconditional love for you!