This is the most uncomfortable I have felt in the last 8 months. My heart feels like a football being pumped with too much air. The seams are being stretched beyond their capacity and I feel like It could burst at any moment. I am at a loss of words to explain it. My emotional intelligence cannot comprehend it. It is the awkward, uncharted territory that He is exploring in my heart and as painful as this stretching might be, it is also the most beautiful thing I have yet to experience. This is the process of understanding the unconditional love a father carries for His son.
The underlying theme of my race has been embracing God intimately as a Father. I have a solid relationship with my earthly father, but there are levels of intimacy we are unable to reach in our father-son relationship. My lack of experiential understanding of that served as a mental block for me to let down my walls and welcome the overflow of unconditional love from Father God into my heart. Over the past 8 months He has continually reassured me that His hands are open whenever I am ready to embrace Him. I have so desperately wanted it. I have been reading books, praying, and studying scripture on what it means for God to be a father. In my purest spiritual moments His voice is so clearly beckoning for me to call Him dad, yet I couldn’t grasp it. I had all of the head knowledge, but it would not translate to my heart. What was I missing? What more did I need to do to understand and believe that God loved me like a perfect father?
The answer came in the most unlikely of places: on a public bus in Cambodia. I sat journaling on my computer, over-thinking the things I wanted to see change in myself over the last portion of my Race. As I pecked away at my keyboard I heard that still small voice whisper, “Stop striving, Son. Just look to me to be like Jesus”. As soon as I heard it, the switch flipped. He revealed to me the missing piece. It was nothing I needed to do, earn, or secure to feel His love. It was not a magic formula of prayer, worship, bible reading, or meditating. It is just embracing the Spirit of Sonship He has called me to, and walking confidently in my identity as a son of the one Perfect Father. Through that revelation He opened my heart to a new level of vulnerability with Him. These last 8 days have been the purest, most intimate days in my walk. He is flooding me with an unexplainable love that is so foreign to me. My heart is just so full to the point that I don’t know how to process it all. So what do you do when something is full and over-flowing? You pour it out.
What better place to pour out an overflow of Father God’s perfect love than at an orphanage with 25 Beautiful Cambodian children. I love these children so deeply. I lack the ability to truly capture this feeling in words. All I can do is smile and cry when I am with them. They are the most beautiful people I have ever encountered. They are so compassionate, humble, and generous. I see Jesus in each of their joyful faces. Every moment I spend with them I feel as if my heart is going to burst from the seams like the over pumped football. I have always felt like a big brother around children, but this time there is something more. I have the unfathomable, earnest, unconditional love for these children that a father carries for his children. At the same time that God is teaching me what it means to be loved like a son, He has blessed me with an opportunity to pour out that fatherly love onto these radiant children who may not have an earthly father. That is the sweetest blessing I could ask for. If I cannot even begin to comprehend how much I love these children, I can only imagine the unending abundance of love my Heavenly Father has for me.
The other night we went star gazing with all the children. The Cambodia night sky is absolutely brilliant. I had one little guy on my lap and two teenage boys close at my side when the pastor came and put his arm around me and said, “These boys love you so deeply, they are already sad that they will have to say goodbye to you one day, Mason”. I started to cry and just started off into the endless sky. I didn’t have the words to articulate it, but I felt the same. The thought of leaving was breaking my heart already. I have never loved this deeply. This is going to be the hardest goodbye I have ever experienced. But thankfully, the month is not yet over! I am going to relentlessly love these children with every moment I have here. I have many more lessons of love to learn from these Christ-like children, and my heart is open to learn them. That’s if it doesn’t explode in the meantime. 🙂
