amor vincit omnia

from the words of katie davis

“Can you imagine the stench?

Joseph has walked and Mary ridden 90 miles in the scorching sun, the wind whipping around their faces and caking them with dust from the dirt road. More sweat pours from Mary’s brow as she experiences the pains of labor for the first time. The stable is packed with all the travelers’ animals. Flies buzz around them in the heat and the air is heavy with the smells of sickly sweet hay and manure.

And into this, a baby enters.

I have witnessed this kind of birth before. Woman sighs and baby falls right into the dirt and in the dark of a tiny mud hut with the light of just a thin candle our eyes search for something, anything, sharp to cut the cord. Water is a luxury and too far to fetch at this hour so we wrap the baby in whatever filthy rag-scraps we can find without even wiping her off first.

Joseph, still merely a child himself, searches for anything he can find in the dim light to cut the cord and swaddle his child, probably rags carrying the afore mentioned stench and the dirt of the journey. Trembling and exhausted they wrap Him as best they can, and swatting flies away lay him in the same trough out of which these animals have been eating.

Behold, the Savior.

And in this moment God fulfils every promise and every prophecy. This, God’s perfect time. God does not wait for the world to get ready, He enters right into the mess.

He makes Himself very least, no more status or opportunity than an easily overlooked infant in the slums where I spend so many hard hours. Very least so that He can commune with the very most desperate – you and me. He doesn’t mind that I am not ready yet and He doesn’t mind the wretched condition of my heart or the stench of my sin. God’s time is now and He enters into the mess, ready or not.

His perfect timing, now. Now is where He has called us. And we are just not ready yet. We need to clean up the house a bit and pray a little more and seek more counsel and we don’t know how to do that yet and oh, we have our excuses. And God says, “I’m here now, and I am ok with the mess because I am here for the messy.”

God doesn’t need us to be ready for Him; He has been ready for us since the beginning of time and the Messiah is here calling us to commune with the Holy One, to eat at His table.

I want the house to be organized and kids to be clean and nicely dressed and I want dinner to come out of the oven on time, but at the end of the day the laundry still piles and there are still crumbs in the corner and can anyone remember if I brushed my teeth today? And it can’t be the New Year yet because I am just not ready for it to be a new year yet.

But I remember when I wasn’t ready to move to Uganda. I remember when I wasn’t ready to kiss the people I loved the most goodbye. I remember when I didn’t have enough money to start a ministry, and I remember when I wasn’t old enough to be a mother, and I remember when I didn’t know how to parent. I remember when I couldn’t cook for fifteen people and when I didn’t want to share my house and my things and my life with sick people and addicts. I remember when I was afraid of the slum community that now holds hundreds of friends and when I was terrified that my daughter would never walk and when I was scared that we would never heal after tragic loss. And I remember that never, not once, was I really as ready as I wanted to be. And I remember that God kept all His promises, every last one, in His perfect time.

This new season looms and I don’t know what is next. But He doesn’t need me to be ready for this season because He is ready. He just needs me to be clinging to His feet.

Now, God’s perfect time.”

—

Oh Jesus, teach me to just have faith in your perfect timing. Lead me to your feet every time, humbled by your mercy and grace. 

You are God alone, and I cannot possibly do what you do. Lead me to fall upon your promises and word, unafraid but faith-full that I will continue to walk toward You on the water. 

avec foi

I don’t have a right to anything in this world. I don’t have the right to clean water, nutritious food, good company, or proper respect. Everything I have in my life is due entirely to the grace God chose to pour upon me. And because of His grace, I am blessed with family, friends, shelter, etc. 

Knowing this, I cannot say that I have a claim on these things that I say I own. My job, money, education—these are things that I cannot cling to, thinking that I deserve more things due to them. I cannot claim anything in this world as mine. 

I pray that as I wait for God to reveal His path to me, my perception of truth will be aligned to His sole truth, always waiting and surrendering in faith and humility.

May I be like water that knows it cannot cling to anything but just move where I am poured onto. 

birth pains

it’s so simple, so easy, to disrupt the flow of this world. 

something I realized just yesterday as people all around me, including myself, began to panic due to the loss of electricity. 

long lines in grocery markets, closed down gas stations, stopped cars on the side of the freeway, huge traffic on local roads, etc. 

sd was without electricity for about ten hours or so
and within those hours, the flow of this city got interrupted, forcing people to get out of their normal Thursday and start initiating their “emergency plans”.  

..i realized..without electricity, this world is screwed. 

and then i woke up today, hearing the same korean drama on television that my parents watch every morning and knew that the electricity came back on.

and just like that, after ten hours, the flow went back to how it was before.

gas stations get reopened, shops go back into business, televisions are turned back on, facebook statuses are updated, life goes on. 

it’s so simple. take one thing out..the world goes into chaos..put that one thing back, everything goes back to normal..as if nothing was ever disrupted in the first place. 

—

light is so crucial. 

because, obviously, without light, we are in utter darkness. 
—something that 3 million people experienced yesterday in san diego.  

but it’s kind of the same thing..i realized..when God takes away His presence—His light—we are in utter darkness..but more utter darkness…….

without His light, there is nothing for us in this dark and depraved world. 

maybe God wants us to wake up and see.