DESIRE...

Delight yourself in the Lord; And he will give you the desires of your heart. Ps.37:4

For the past two weeks we have been winding all around Germany. The experiences have been comical, adventurous, and uplifting. Throughout the whole trip the word desire has been echoing around in my mind.  

What desire would a:

·         Family have to entrust their rambunctious kin to their vacant quaint Northern Germany home?

·         single mom and her daughter have in order to be open to host a family of six...including 4 very ‘alive’ kids?

·         What about 80 year old Tante Marta, who rode her bike for fifteen minutes each way to purchase a fifteen pound bag of potatoes from the store in time for the family’s visit ?

·         Then there is the young family just outside of Koln that take valuable time out of their pressed schedule to host this impulsive family from Canada?

·         How about the whole clan of Grabowski’s that open their doors and hearts wide open to make this past Christmas unforgettable for us?

The thread that ties all those together is love. Each of the homes that we have been in for the past couple of weeks have been immensely memorable because we felt very loved and cared for. I am convinced that each host had a desire to be sacrificing what they have in order to make our time with them very special. Their sacrifice was our reward. Their desire was our satisfaction.

Our trip through Germany also caused us to encounter the dark side of desire. The experience of the Dachau Concentration Camp, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp

and the Topography of Terror in Berlin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topography_of_Terror
cannot be put into words. Here the desire to control; to inflict pain through power; to mercilessly cause suffering upon the lives of those that you have been entrusted to protect, was horrifically evident. Here we also witnessed desire. Desire for darkness, desire for evil. Desire driven not out of love and sacrifice for the other, but rather, by hatred, power and self-glorification.

Desire...it is a powerful emotion. One that has been evident from the first humans, whose children were even warned that ‘if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.’ (Gen 4:4).   

What a contrast this is from what our Lord desires for his people:

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Hosea 6:6 ESV

When we desire the glory of God we are fulfilling our calling. We have shifted from the old self to the new self. This is not mere habitual sacrifice of time and our riches. It invites us into a life in which our hearts are alive in Jesus. Our hearts of stone are exchanged for a heart of flesh (Ezek 36:26). To try to be satisfied with anything less than the glory of God is only temporary and ultimately disappointing.

God desires for all of us to be saved.

‘...God our Saviour, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.’ (1 Timothy 2:3b-4)

To be saved is to lay our life completely before our gracious God. To find our self-driven desires repulsive (2 Peter 3:3) and to live in the freedom of being adopted children of the Lord Almighty. The thrill of following Jesus has no limits. His Kingdom continues to expand and includes the many that are otherwise neglected.

On Tuesday, we left Germany and arrived in Douala, Cameroon in the late evening. The heat, humidity and odours of this sea level city are wonderfully constrictive. The next morning the 6ish hour drive almost straight up over 5000 ft. to Bamenda was stunning. Interspersed by the buzzing of wasp-like motorcycles, plantations (pineapple, rubber, coffee, and papaya), security check points, and road side markets, are people. Lots and lots of people. I have never seen such an endless stream of people walking: children that could not have been four years old, walking on their own up the highway; old people, hunched over by the weight of the baskets on their backs; people of all ages pushing their carts up the endless hills; a seemingly infinite line of people, all going somewhere.

The road for us goes right into the Cameroon Baptist Convention (CBC) Headquarters. This outstanding complex is the result of the desires of visionary leadership following the guidance of the Lord. The CBC is a daughter of the North American Baptist Conference (NAB). Many years ago, the desire to bring the grace of Jesus Christ to Cameroon resulted in this outstanding mission field. With some of Cameroon’s best teaching hospitals, health clinics, schools for children, seminaries and churches the current CBC is a beautiful testimony of effective leadership. Virtually the entire leadership of the CBC is now provided by the Cameroonian people.  

What is being provided is to be marvelled at; the need of the people is even greater though. In this land that is filled with suffering and warmth, there is a need for the desires of those that have, to give to those that are experiencing the pain of life. We are not able to exist abundantly with an ‘us and them’ mentality... we are all together.  

Our friends, brothers and sisters, I leave you with the question that has changed my life, ‘what motivates you? What is your desire?’ I urge us all to reach beyond our grasp and to be motivated by the cause of God’s Kingdom. Who is in your sphere of influence that you are able to touch with love as you surrender yourself to causing them to experience the hope that passes all understanding?

One of the beauties of a Spirit-filled life is that we do not need to conform to an outside of ourselves norm or set of rules. We have the Spirit of the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe within us, so that we can be fully alive in Him.

We have been advised that the internet connection will be very sporadic in Ndu (where we leave for in the morning) so please go ahead and join the blog as a member so that you will know when we have the chance to update. Hopefully, then we will also get some photos added to the blog.

We love you all

Dan and the family