Satisfied By Love...Day 9

Writing with many others today about faith and linking up at A Holy Experience.  Ann's own post  caused me to sit, to wonder, to think, to pray.

In the beginning of this 30 day study of being satisfied by love I've been drawn to verse after verse about God's love for us.  But what about the fullness of loving other people?

Ann is sharing her experience as she travels through Ecuador with Compassion International and has caused me to see my own sponsorship differently.  More than a mailed check and a faraway face.  Her visits help give a picture of life to those of us who can't make it there yet.

Her writing reminded me of what I read today in John 13:3-5 "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper.  He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist.  Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him."

I wonder how dirty those feet were.  How sweaty they may have been from all their traveling during the time of Passover.

But He came here to get dirty.  He came as an example so we would get dirty.

"For I have given you and example, that you also should do just as I have done to you."  John 13:15

How dirty are my hands?

How often do I think about the time it takes or the money it would cost or the emotional investment required to be neck deep in the mud?

In His last moments, moments likely to be remembered forever by His disciples, this is what He does.  He gets down on His knees and washes the feet of those men.  The parting thoughts He wants them to have is of Him serving.  And He tells them to do this too.

I wonder how often the disciples got down to wash the feet of those walking with them after that ?  I know they were busy people starting the church and performing miraculous signs and encouraging other believers and avoiding persecution or facing it head-on.  At least these were good reasons.

Because aren't we all busy?  Don't we see other things as more important and more immediate and the service is a leftover "if-I-have-time" kind of thing?  Or maybe that's just me.

But that's like asking God for the leftovers when He wants to give us the harvest!  When our knees are in the dirt and our hands are in the ground, that is when we are filled.  When we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice, when we worship Him with the time He's given us, when we share the resources He has provided, we empty out and make room for more of Him to fill us.  We are satisfied by His love when we are loving others.

If we don't empty ourselves out every once-in-a-while, how can we make room for Him?

Lord, may my eyes be open to each opportunity I have to get messy.  Let me not fear emptying myself out on behalf of someone else because I know You will fill me again and there will be more of You and less of me...