Enlarge my heart

This morning I was doing my devotions in one of the most beautiful places I've ever done them (and I've been to some beautiful places), sitting on the roof of our half-built hotel (thank you Jesus for relaxed health and safety) overlooking the harbour town of Coron. You can see it below. I felt God speaking to me powerfully as I was listening to a song by Jon Owens called Fire Burns, which has been ministering to me for over ten years! But first let me share quickly the epic adventures of the last two days.

It's Wednesday today - it's been a bit of a blur as Henry forgot to plan for us to sleep at all during our itinerary! I'm joking, sort of, but we have used every ounce of daylight and beyond to the max! Monday we spent at an old Spanish type Manor House called Villa Escudero, which is about a two hour drive from our base in Paranaque. It was an awesome day. Among other things, we visited an interesting museum (specialising in everything from Roman Catholic symbols to global currency!), took a ride in a carriage pulled by a big pig with horns (apparently called a Carabao), ate a buffet lunch literally sitting in the river (feet submerged) next to a man-made waterfall and rowed on the river on a dodgy bamboo raft. We crowned the day with a Jollibee Champ burger - a new favourite of mine!

Then yesterday! We caught a taxi to the airport at 3:30am (well, two taxis - first one to the wrong terminal - insert smiley emoji here) to catch a plane to Coron. Upon arrival, we dropped our bags, jumped into a life-threatening motorbike-type taxi (which by the way is not built for anyone taller than 1.6m) and got onto a boat to do some famous island hopping. Again, an absolutely awesome day. Unfortunately I don't have any photos, but if you are on Facebook, Arlene has about 333. We dove, we swam, we kayaked, we ate, we saw the most stunning, stereotypical, paradise-like scenes imaginable and we ordered ice cream from an ice cream boat! A day I will never forget... I could go on and on, but I'm trying to be brief.

So this morning God spoke to me about 'enlarging my heart'. I'd like to share it as I feel it's relevant to all of us. When I say enlarging my heart I mean to be able to carry more people in it, and specifically nations. The words from the song struck me deep in my heart, as it has many times before: 'I will not stop, till every tribe and nation bow before You'. I thought, does this really describe me? I realised that this idea of sharing the Gospel of Jesus with every nation is what true love really looks like. The Gospel is love. The Gospel, the message of the cross, that Jesus died for everything that separated us from God, and that He thus connects us to God, who is love, means that the Gospel is love. Sharing the Gospel with the nations, is to love them best, which means to have a large heart.

While that sounds beautiful, the reality of this is challenging. To love the nations means that you have to deal with 'other'. That which is completely different to me and my background. And the truth is that some 'other' is easier to deal with than others. The Filipino people for instance are easy to love (in my opinion). A beautiful people (always looking at least ten years younger than their age), a fun-loving people, a humble people, a serving people; but also in many ways a desperate people, with much need of the Gospel and all the physical benefits it brings.

I have learnt and am still learning, that to love that which is 'other' and therefore all others well, it helps to honour their strengths (their beauty, the glory of God in them) without stumbling over their weaknesses. And I suppose this is the point of all my writing today. For the great prize of seeing all the nations connected to a loving God through the good news of Jesus, let us recognise and celebrate the good in one another without stumbling over the bad. Let us love one another well. Let us enlarge our hearts.