Heavenly Parenting

Had a lovely conversation with my Mum yesterday. She just decided, (as you do on your daughter's 22nd birthday in the year when she's getting married, leaving home and starting a new life), to tell me that she loved me more than I would ever know. She said that her love for me was completely unconditional, completely unchanging and completely unearnable. She also said that she looked forward to the day when I had children, because then I would fully grasp just what it meant for her to love me so much.

It got me thinking about God and His love for me. My mum isn't a Christian and completely believes her love is the most anyone could have for anyone - she wasn't claiming some level above anyone else, she explained that any parent loves their child in this way, and not to is to go against nature. I see lots of evidence in the world that some parents dont have this love for their children, but I expect the majority do. Obviously my Mum's love for me isn't entirely unconditional, even if she claims it is. Obviously her love isn't unchanging - it can't be, she isn't perfect. And in humanly terms, I suppose as far as daughters go I've given her a fairly easy ride - she probably doesn't have to battle to love me on a daily basis!

But with God - well in spiritual terms, I'm a complete mess. I screw up more than you realise, more than I realise... I reject God, I go other ways, I decide to satisfy myself with worldly things rather than Heavenly, I put barriers between myself and my Saviour, and I treat His people so horribly sometimes that it shocks me, never mind God. God has absolutely every reason not to love me! He has every reason to say I haven't earned the right to be His child and therefore can't be. But He doesn't do this!

God went to immeasurable ends so that I could be His child. His love IS unconditional. His love IS unchanging! The love and the emotion He feels towards me vast outweighs my mum's - she sobs when I sob, she laughs when I laugh, she claims she feels my joy and my pain - if that's true, if this mother-daughter bond she speaks of IS so real and so strong, then how much more is my Heavenly Creator, my redeemer, my everlasting Father in Heaven's love for me, His child? How much more does He know me, feel what I feel, love me, cherish me, treasure me?

It's a blessing to have such a loving family, fiance, friends who love me more than I ever deserve to. But nothing outweighs the blessing of knowing that my Heavenly Father loves me, because He IS love. His love never, ever fails.

Penny Dropping Moment

So this week I'm being a CU Guest at Lancaster University's CU Mission. It's been great, hard work and very tiring but really encouraging. It's now Thursday night and although I've felt entirely out of my depth all week, I am looking back over the week and just seeing what God has taught me about myself and about Himself.

You (I say that assuming someone reads my blog, I don't actually think anyone does...) may be a long term "I've done 25 mission weeks this last year" type but for newbees like me, who have just stumbled through 3 mission weeks while at Uni (one of which I hid away for out of fear that someone might hand me some flyers, one of which I was on placement for so not even around during the day, and one of which I was so stressed out sorting out CUGs and money and logisitics that I didn't do any evangelism...) this week was a very different story and a whole new thing for me.

Of course, I understand the Gospel and I understand evangelism and I have a really massive passion for student evangelism and I love the work of the CU and even of UCCF (oh, how people change...) and I love mission weeks and I know how effective they can be! Of course, I tick all the boxes. But there's always more to it than that. Nothing annoys me more than people who act as if they will never learn anything new. I hope I never get like that! So I got to Lancaster expecting to be pushed out of my comfort zone and expecting to learn new things about my glorious Saviour and about HIS mission strategy. And of course I have.

At the beginning of the week one of the other CUGs talked about loving seeing when CU students who previously haven't understood evangelism suddenly get it - "a penny dropping moment"... well, like I say, we can tick all the boxes and still have penny dropping moments, and I had one last night.

To skip all the boring parts, me and one of the CU members were talking to a Muslim guy about Christianity, he invited us over to his room in order that he could understand more about what we believed, in the hope this would help him to understand Judaism, which from what we can gather we think was related to trying to understand the situation in Gaza. So he basically said... tell me what you believe. I love that question! As we encouraged him to realise how sinful the world is and how we are all so in desperate need for a Saviour, we had the joy of being able to explain how Jesus can rescue us from that sin and make us acceptable in God's sight! It was clear he understood, whether he got passed the "I just want to know what you believe" to it challenging his heart, we don't know; but God's message is powerful and glorious and we can only pray.

But the amazing thing I went away from this conversation with, as well as an encouragement for both me and the guy I was with that we could explain the Gospel (which when you aren't constantly coming into contact with people who ask such blatent questions, doubt can creep in...) was this overwhelming thankfulness and joy that what I said was true and it applied for me! I am such a classic rule setter, and the type that beats myself up every time I fall into the same sinful things I struggle with time and time again... and yet just as I told the guy we spoke to, I am saved from that! I was practically dancing as I walked back, both out of excitement that God could use someone as unwilling and uncooperative and broken and bumbly as me, and also that this amazing message, that seems too good to be true sometimes when you say it out loud, IS true and IS applied to me!

I am a big fan of reminding myself how broken and dirty I am, and using the knowledge and joy of my salvation through Jesus as my encouragement and motivation for evanglism. You can keep your "you should do this and this...." guilt, and your deceptive methods and your "how many missions/gospels/conversations have you been on/handed out/had recently" competitiveness as a motivation. Joy is the only thing that is really going to make people want to tell people about their faith. it's probably the only thing that will make the penny drop!