But He Said Hermoso

Hermoso.  It is one of the few Spanish words that I will never forget.  Hermoso is used to describe something that is beautiful and lovely.  Hermoso is not something that I would use to describe my heart.  But for a reason that I still do not fully understand, the Lord did. 

When you are living life on the field, it becomes incredibly easy to become complacent.  It is easy to justify only giving half of your heart to the work you are doing, or to only do it half as well as you could have.  After all, you need to pace yourself.  You need to take things slow.  While this is very true, the Lord never asks us to do half our best.  He asks us to go all in, and trust that He will provide us with the strength needed to make it through.  He asks us to do everything as if unto the Lord.  Whether that be working, resting, or witnessing, he wants us to give it our everything. 

The more I pondered this, the more I realized that I was not all in.  I wasn’t all in during my work, and I wasn’t all in during my rest.  Instead, I had shifted my focus from going all in for the Lord to going all in for myself.  What was I gaining from this situation?  How could I make sure that I would be happy?  I began to do things with less energy and vigor.  I focused more on how to make myself happy than how I could best serve the ones God had placed me here to serve. 

The more I became aware of the situation, the more I felt that I had failed.  What did God, who so graciously allowed me to be here, think of me?  My heart told me that he must be angry.  He must be regretting His decision to send me as His ambassador.  Under no circumstances could He possibly be pleased with me. 

I came to our nightly team time one night feeling this way.  I found out that we would be spending our time that night doing listening prayer for one another.  We stood in a circle and closed our eyes.  One of our team leaders came around and tapped one of us on the shoulder.  Then the rest of the group, without knowing whose shoulder was tapped, would speak what the they felt the Lord wanted to say to that person. 

To my surprise, my shoulder was tapped.  I braced myself for what was coming.  I expected that the Lord was going to take full advantage of this opportunity to tell me that I needed to do better.  That I needed to get my act together.  But nothing could be further from the truth. 

The first thing that was said was beautiful.  I was skeptical at first.  I certainly did not feel like it applied to me.  My heart was far from beautiful.  But sure enough that word kept popping up time and again.  Then one of my team leaders said that she felt God was saying that I was hermoso.  Confused, she looked up the definition.  Sure enough, it was Spanish for beautiful and lovely.  This was not a word that she knew.  It was not something that could be made up.  The almighty God who knows all looked down from Heaven and asked her to tell me that I was hermoso.  That I was loved by Him, that to Him I was beautiful and lovely.

The words that He spoke to me were not ones of condemnation but of love.  When I had convinced myself that love was the last thing He would wish to speak to me, He demanded that I hear Him proclaim His it in a way that was undeniably Him.  That is the kind of God we serve.  His love for you does not vary according to how well you live your life for Him.  His love is solid.  It is unshakeable and eternal.  You cannot run from it.  It is an ever-present force that will never leave you.  And I cannot wait to continue to walk in it.