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. 

               

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PING! PONG!

The first time I saw Lauds and Vespers (nicknames: Ping and Pong) at the pet shop, I knew in my heart that I had to adopt them. After Kobe, bro. A’s turtle, was turtlenap, I have kept looking to get a new one for the Brevs to take care of. Now WE have two! But you may ask, “Why among all the cute animals in the pet shop did I choose Ping and Pong? Besides, they are a reminder of sluggishness.”
Well, that is primarily the reason why we have to see them all the time. They remind us that they are the ones who have the right to slow down –not us! But aside from that image they are known of, it is quite a wonder how they teach us about life. Remember our kindergarten stories about the Monkey and the Turtle? They may seem slow but they are wise.
After we got Ping and Pong their turtle bowl, we rushed to the church for our Vespers. As we were about to start our prayers, I saw them lifting their heads as high as they could. I thought, “Wow! Could it be that they knew they were inside the chapel and that they were also praying?” When I took them home, I got them out of the bowl and I saw them actually run. They are not as slow as we expected them to be. While I enjoyed playfully watching them, it amazed me on how they would suddenly stop, lift their heads, and then walk again.
Most of the time we are so preoccupied with a lot of things that we tend to rush everything just for the sake of completion. The complexity of our times calls us to do so much that it seems like everything is just too fast that we are running out of time. Other times, we feel we are too slow that we are unable to accomplish anything. Nevertheless, no matter what our pace may be, Ping and Pong teach us never to forget to raise our heads and simply praise God for whatever circumstance we are in. For only in acclaiming the Alpha and Omega are we able to reach our destination – maybe slowly...but surely.