Let Go. Let Love Flow.

Introduction

I've really been lagging behind in sharing this story (it was meant to be my first post this year). Each time I tried to write it I couldn't get myself to do it even when I had free time. Mostly because it's hard to be vulnerable for me so this was hard to write plus I've been distracted. Anyway, this post is about some of my experiences towards the end of Winter break. ...I feel like God set me up! He directed me to remember what matters most, the greatest commandment, which is LOVE. Through my experiences God showed me what was hindering the reception of love; what was preventing me from fully obeying His commandment and bearing this fruit. Now I know why the devil's been trying to keep me from sharing this, he hates love and he hates it when his schemes that hinder the reception of love are exposed.This is a cumulation of what should have been separate posts so you can take your time reading it or just read it like a novel lol. I'm doing this for myself since I forget things really quickly and for the purpose of sharing with friends and family and anyone else coz I just care a lot about people for some reason (Plus I think I have a "Macharia recording gene" inherited from my dad lol. I can't help but document stuff).What God taught me was really powerful and eye-opening for me and I hope it encourages you as well :) (If you have no time for my story-telling then go right ahead and jump to the conclusion lol : A Call to Love (scroll to the bottom) :-) [Update: I've added 2 new videos I made: Where I belong and Live Outloud at the very end]

Main Text: Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

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Part 1: Love God

How do I love God? Right from the beginning of Fall God has been showing me the relationship among love, freedom and surrender. Loving involves giving (ex. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...-John 3:16). So to love God with your all, you have to give Him your all. This is where the problem comes for us because we tend to give parts of ourselves to idols (anything else not God) and we don't want to let go of these idols, we don't want to give them up to God therefore that prevents us from loving God with all that we are.

Surrender (giving ourselves to God/ giving up our idols) frees us up to Love God. Another way of looking at this is God has immense love for us and truly gazing upon it sets us free from our idols, sets us free to love Him back. Either way, the choice is ours. We have to choose to avert our gaze from the world to truly gaze on His great love in order to be transformed by it. We have to choose to surrender our burdens to Him, to give him our all, so that we are free to love Him. You can read about my surrender experience in the "Hello Africans..." post (I'll share the details about that in another post- "Freedom by expression"). So yeah life is a dance so who you dancing with? Jesus is asking: May I have this dance? And He only wants to dance with you and not to share you with anyone else- He is jealous for you (burning with intense love for you). Let's say yes, give Him our hand and He'll sweep us off our feet and take care of everything else :) His love is great and sweeps away all our offenses and shame. He loves us as we are. Nothing can keep us from His love, nothing we've done, nothing at all. His love is free, we just have to receive it :) " I Love you" by Misty Edwards:

• http://youtu.be/UHlliA_Ui2o
  
  

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Part 2: Love your neighbor as yourself

***This part is what God directed me to focus on during Winter break. Here are my experiences! Let's journey back in time together lol :)

Dec 24th: Love, The Language

I discovered that love is a language so a lot of miscommunication can happen. The first evidence of this was right when I came home there was some drama between my sisters. I'll spare the details but it boiled down to misunderstandings of love language. I realized that my older sister really likes to give (that's her love language) and she likes shopping too so she likes to take us (younger siblings) for shopping a lot. On the other hand my younger sister, the last born, is always on the receiving end of this love and she kinda started to take it for granted and expected the gifts like she deserved them so she became ungrateful. That's one main reason for the drama.

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Dec 25th: How you love is an expression of yourself

Christmas! It was nice to see the whole family come together, laugh, eat and have a good time. My younger sister was being a grinch most of the night due to the drama she had had with my big sis when she didn't get her way. But later, after we left my sister's house my mum and I talked to her and she saw her wrong (being demanding and ungrateful for my sister's way of loving her) and thankfully she called my sis and they made up :)

It was a good Christmas and I was grateful but as I was going to bed I had a strange feeling that something was missing. A thought popped up in my head: "Why do I feel like I don't love my family?...I know that I love them but how come I don't have the feeling to back up the knowledge?" It was then that I realized that I didn't give any gifts to anyone for Christmas. I helped my sister with her Christmas shopping and I could have shopped then too but I didn't. I came to another realization: "How you love is an expression of yourself." My sister is really fashionable and likes to shop for clothes and stuff so the way she loves is an expression of who she is - she shops for people fashionable things.

As for me, I figured out the problem that was causing the miscommunication of love between my brain (knowledge) and my heart (feeling). Love gives. Giving is an expression of yourself. So in order to love you have to be yourself, you have to give, you have to express yourself. That's my problem...I'm not myself anymore. My love language is also giving but I don't like shopping- I'm not very materialistic. But I like creating stuff using materials I have/ collect. When I was younger I used to like baking for the family, I would make cards or other crafty gifts and slideshows using family pictures. It brought me joy making these since I was being myself so I could actually feel the love I was expressing. My family also received it well, they were usually touched by my simple gifts :)

Then why did I stop expressing my love through expressing myself?

I conformed to the pattern of this world :( (Romans 12:2) The world is pretty materialistic so when I started caring about what the world thought about me I began to change to try to fit in with others. I thought people would think that I was being cheap if I made something instead of buying it so sometimes I would just buy something and the person on the receiving end would be happy but I wouldn't feel the love I was giving since it was not an expression of who I am (creative).

Another reason why is because creating thoughtful stuff takes time. When I was in Kenya it seemed like I always had time/ made time to make stuff for people's special days but when we came to America it was a different story. The pace of life is much faster here and I felt like I had jumped onto a crazy rat-race so my inner peace was compromised. So I put first the urgent stresses that needed to be handled and after that I was too burnt out to think about anything else. So it wasn't always due to lack of time, mostly lack of a peaceful inner life.

There's another major reason that prevents me from being myself, I'll address that in this post "Winter rains." (Love is not selfish!)

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Dec 28th: Kansas City bound. Onething Conference

When I went to InterVarsity's Urbana conference in my freshman year I met a Kenyan guy there which was cool. I had started listening to a lot of Jesus Culture & ihop music over the summer and in Fall so when he saw my posts on facebook he told me about ihop's (international house of prayer) Onething conference and strongly recommended that I go. I checked out the info and I really wanted to go but as usual I procrastinated making a decision until 2 weeks prior. I decided to go with my small sis, Olivia. I was excited for her to come with me because I didn't think she's got the opportunity to experience the Holy Spirit- For me the first time I felt the Holy Spirit (His tangible presence) was at a christian camp when I was in the fourth grade in Kenya. So I was hoping for that to happen to her. Plus it would be a good bonding experience traveling with her although I knew well of potential problems with that since we don't always see eye to eye lol. (Thanks Jared for the strong suggestion to go to onething and for always checking up on how my Intervarsity chapter is doing, my walk and for all the encouragement. God bless you as you keep blessing others! :)

Goodmorning?

The morning of our departure we had a little clash over something silly. So in my head I was like, "Why am I going anywhere with her???" If I stayed angry I knew that would make the situation worse and the trip would have ended right then for one of us. But I didn't want that to happen so even though I was frustrated (rightfully) I decided to forgive her and I turned to the Bible for some hope. I randomly turned to Isaiah 44:1-5. And that was the hope I needed so I held on to it. (Yeah it was random but God usually speaks to me in random ways lol). She eventually apologized as we were on our way to the airport (Thank God!) :) We kinda got lost while driving to the airport with my mum but thankfully we left early so we had time to find our way. So yeah there were some obstacles that morning but God brought us through and we were on our way to Kansas city :)

Friendshipping: Guy on the Plane

I didn't get to sit with my sister because I bought the tickets late hence I didn't have that liberty. So I sat next to this guy he was really friendly from the time I sat down. He looked and sounded Russian because he was Russian lol as I found out from conversation. He's from Russia but he had done an exchange program in Kansas city a year or two ago so he was going to visit the family that had hosted him, how nice :) ..... The conversation went well when I was asking him questions like "What book are you reading? Where you going? What's your host family like? What's it like living in Russia compared to the U.S? different school systems? weather? family dynamics?" He answered them pretty well. And he asked me similar questions like "What was it like living in Kenya? how was school there? family?" and it was going pretty well until he asked me other questions like, "What book are you reading? Where are you going? Am I going to party for New Years" ...See I was reading my notebook (notes from christian conferences and personal notes about things I'm learning from the Bible). I hesitated a little then told him, "Oh just some of my notes" then I quickly changed the subject. Then later he asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to this christian conference with lots of young people (20,000). He asked me what we were going to do there. I told him we were going to have talks and worship music and such. He told me that he believed in God but in Russia the church is really conservative and boring so it's mostly composed of older people but he goes once in a while like on Christmas. He then told me that he was amazed that when he first went to church in America with his host family they had "rock music as worship" and there were many young people. I told him that church is actually fun since we (young people) come together and worship God as we are and it's fun. He told me that he was planning to go to church for New Year's. Then the plane landed and we split ways.

*Moral of the story: Once again I realized that I wasn't comfortable with being myself and that was affecting making friends. You see being a Christian is central to my identity. He freely told me about himself in detail but when it came to me I was holding back (due to fear of appearing weird) instead of also freely telling him about myself (which involves being a christian). So I wasn't being a good friend. And what was more sad was that when we started talking about church I could see a longing in him- I could see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. I knew what he wanted to know yet I gave him shallow answers ("yeah it's fun!") since I was worried about myself (fear of rejection) rather than sharing details about this relationship with God that makes me come alive. Missed opportunity to express myself and be a good friend! :( But he had given me his name so I find him on facebook so I hoped to continue the friendship there only I don't think I got the right spelling for his last name because I didn't find him :( So I just said a prayer for him and that was that.

My Lovely Kenyan Host :)

So my friend, Lorna, from junior high in Kenya (we call it primary school 1st-8th grade) lives in Kansas city and she agreed to host us :) So we were reunited after ~8years :) Right after she picked us up from the airport we went with her to her bible study at one of her friend's house. Though we were tired it was really nice and refreshing for me. There were people from different age groups from her church. They were sharing and giving thanks to God for all He did in 2011 and spoke blessings into 2012. Some shared their thanks through singing. Then my friend Lorna stood up to share her testimony and I was not expecting to here what she said. She introduced me and my sister and then she shared how back in primary school me and my group of friends had really influenced her. She said that she saw a consistency in our Christian walk which really influenced her to keep pursuing Christ. I was felt honored but a bit puzzled at the same time- I thought to myself, "I didn't do anything special back then. I was just being myself and hanging with my friends." Then I realized that's what it's all about. I just need to be myself. Christian is who I am. Jesus lives inside me. So if I just be myself- who I really am- I'll influence people even without knowing.

We had arrived in the middle of the bible study but at the end it struck me how friendly and welcoming everyone was with me. It reminded me of Kenya although that had become a foreign feeling after living in the U.S for 5 years now. I felt seen hence I felt loved. Acknowledgement is key yet this is really low key in individualistic cultures :( when compared to collectivistic cultures. And that's another issue that I'll address later lol.

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Dec 29th: Kindness & Generosity & "Encouragement"

This was our first day at the Onething Conference (we were a day late). In one of the lines we made a friend with a guy called Evens, he is originally from Haiti. We didn't know anyone else at the conference so we were planning to just stick together and figure things out ourselves but I thank God we met Evens. He showed us where to go for registration and the meeting rooms and stuff and we hang out with him for most of the conference. Just through hanging out I could see how humble, kind and generous he was- which convicted me of how I wasn't kind anymore. Even though he just met us he was caring towards my sister and I (like a brother) and even paid for our lunches even when we protested. (If you're reading this Thank you Evens! We are really glad we met you and we appreciated you acts of kindness even though they seemed small, they touched our hearts. I pray that God keeps blessing you in every way :)

Another person I learned from at the conference surprisingly was my sis Olivia. I watched her interactions with people and saw how friendly she was compared to me. She made lots of new friends in a short time while I was avoiding initiating with people. This also convicted me and reminded me of the past- I used to be friendly and now I'm trying to avoid people, what happened? Fear of rejection and being misunderstood.

At the conference Olivia looked like she was spaced out most of the time. And yeah she told me she was just observing people. I encouraged her to participate more instead of just watching people. Later she told me that she's not sure whether she's a Christian anymore since she just goes to church with my mum because my mum tells her to. So I continued praying for her. But I also continued encouraging her to pray for herself and it really hurt when she took my encouragement as me "forcing her" to do stuff and we got into little arguments because of that. Finally this one night when I thought she was making progress and I was encouraging her again to be more engaged we had a bigger argument which really hurt me because I was just trying to help. So after that I gave up on my efforts and just resolved to pray for God to pour out His Spirit like He promised in that Scripture I read (Isaiah 44:1-5) And later that night during worship, I was still praying for her (in my heart) and when I opened my eyes I saw her crying! I knew God was working! She later told me that she had prayed to God since she didn't know who she was anymore and then the next song was "I finally found where I belong, in Your Presence" and she felt like God was answering her through that song :) Here it is. I made it with family pictures :)

I was happy God was moving in Olivia. At the same time I realized that I was focussed on her most of the time yet I still felt empty inside (thirsty) and I wanted God to touch me too. This was the next song and it encouraged me to keep waiting on the Lord because He is "always willing, my cup He'll be filling" :) And Olivia told me this song touched her as well :)

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Dec 30th: Measure of Love. And Nefarious Documentary.

On this day during worship this one song that Misty Edwards sung really pierced my heart.

Some of the lyrics: When it’s all been said, when it’s all been done. When the race is run, well it all comes down to love. Did you learn to love? That’s what You will ask of me.

I then realized that that's what God was trying to teach me through the different people I encountered. He was asking me, "Remember love? That's what it's all about and you can't keep hurts keep you from loving." Something that has kept me from being myself and loving others is fear of rejection. Just by being myself I have faced rejection and it hurt so in order to keep myself from hurting I built a wall but that same wall blocked love from going in or out. That wall needed to come down if I was going to love again, if I was going to be myself again. (Winter Rains)

This night we watched "Nefarious: Merchant of Souls" which is the best documentary I've seen on sex traficking. It's a must-see! It was really eye-opening and moving!!! They are coming to UCSB on April 12th. Location: IV Theater at 7pm. It opened my eyes to another barrier of love (it's expression and reception) which is being judgemental. This documentary de-bunked a lot of myths that exist concerning the sex industry and went underneath the surface to show the systems of oppression and such knowledge fills you up with a deep love for others and a passion for justice and hope for healing and identity restoration. I think everyone should watch it especially Christians. It's time for us to love like for real, just like Jesus did.

Misty Edwards spoke that night and it was really powerful. I won't get into that but you catch any of the teachings on their website. And that night I blogged my thoughts, my "Therefore" post.

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Family. Some sharing. Some crying.

After the conference we went back to Lorna's house then before we slept Olivia and I debriefed on what we thought about the night then other stuff came up. We started talking about our family. First Olivia opened up and told me how she felt jealous of me because it seemed like I have it all together, and I have a scholarship and stuff. She felt like I've had it easy which adds pressure to her to try and live up to those standards. I was really sad to hear that because that's how my family sees me, how people see me. So it had come to this... I knew I had to be vulnerable. So yeah I opened up and told her my problems. How I was failing at school and my relationships with people. And also I shared what was heavy on my heart concerning my family. I'm in a big family of 7 kids and I'm the 5th. Family has special ways of really getting to you- uhm yeah that blood connection is really hard to ignore- so family has power to build you up/ mess you up in deep ways. Conflicts are bound to arise but who likes dealing with them? With my family many attempts to resolve conflict leads to raised voices- once it hits here the conflict is avoided. "You are angry so go cool down before you talk to me." But what I've realized is that anger is usually a mask for deep hurt so one has to know how to properly navigate the convo to get to the hurt this usually involves displacing yourself (putting yourself in their shoes so yeah no room for selfish defensiveness) and asking questions (admitting ignorance). People are more comfortable portraying anger than hurt ( that involves vulnerability which people view as weakness). So yeah, I won't get to the details of my family drama but yeah, we got to share and a lot of crying happened (and yes that was a unique event for us). After we talked apologies were in order- to each other and other family members for various reasons. I got hope for healing and family reconciliation - the first step is vulnerability, the next owning up to your contributions to the problem(s) and then apologizing and asking for forgiveness. And it takes Jesus for this to happen (for people to stop thinking about themselves). Yeah that was a beautiful night, tears and all and to top it off Olivia told me that she had re-dedicated her life to God the previous night! Hahaha! God is sooooo good! Praise Him! =)

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Dec 31st: Love & Holy Ghost Party into the New Year

This night what stood out to me the most was how we prayed, interceeded, and worshipped through song and dance into the New Year. It was so much fun! hahaha :-)

As we were praying, I can't remember who prayed but they said that God was bringing us back to His first commandment which is Love and they prayed against the fear of man and fear of rejection and I could resonate with that prayer. (Later on I heard a sermon by Jacob Reeves and He was talking about Daniel. He said "If you fear rejection then you’ll worship approval, you’ll worship man and the status quo. You’ll worship what you fear the most
-If you fear God the most (reverence= holy fear) you’ll worship Him.)

Then we partied the night away in worship to the King of King who was and is and still to come (soon!). We danced so hard we were so exhausted that night- I'll post some of our videos at the end. "Ain't no party like a Holy Ghost party coz a Holy Ghost party don't stop" =)

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1st Week of Jan 2012- More Lessons. Fellowship. More Tears.

On Sunday we went to Breakthrough Church (a Kenyan church) with Lorna and after we joined them for lunch at her friends. I got all teary-eyed again at these two gatherings again.

*Kids: First at church, I helped out Lorna teach Sunday school to the kids which was fun and it reminded me how integral it is to teach the Word to kids (in a kid-friendly manner: songs, dance, bible-story telling and other exercises- kid-friendly doesn't mean entertainment without truth!). My sister was complaining how some churches here she's tried out don't have Sunday school- it's more like daycare- just keeping the kids entertained playing games while the grown ups do their thing in the main service. This pisses me off because it is under-estimating kids and they need spiritual food as well. Almost all the Scripture I have memorized is what I memorized as a kid through Sunday School (mostly through music). It also reminded me that this responsibility is not just for the church leaders but we all have some influence over our loved ones and we have the choice to make it a positive one (godly).

*After church- People stuck around to mingle and there was some Kenyan gospel music playing in the background, and some of the kids went on stage and started dancing as their parents and others watched with joy and danced along. This brought tears to my eyes. There was so much freedom in the air and so much love gushing out of hearts. The joy was contagious as fellowship flowed freely.

*Lunch- One of Lorna's friends cooked delicious Kenyan food and invited people over (so after church some people went over to her house and fellowship continued). It was a time to just chill, play games, eat and enjoy each other's company. Once again, this brought tears to my eyes because it brought back memories. As I watched them do life together (fellowship) I got flashbacks from my past. They were playing games with Christian music playing in the background and laughter in the air. This reminded my family how close we used to be, how we used to fellowship with each other (acknowledging God's presence with us as well as each other's). I felt like I was watching a family video ( music and prayer was usually included in the fun times). It reminded me of African culture- how we don't compartmentalize stuff. It saddened me to see just how much we have conformed to the patterns of this world and the results of those decisions. How we are not ourselves anymore. How I'm not myself anymore :( (So yeah Lorna if I looked sad now you know why. I was just taking in and processing a lot of stuff). 

(Update: New Video)

*To Lorna and the friends I met in Kansas city: Thanks for being a light, just by being yourselves. Thanks for seeing me, loving me and welcoming me into your community (they were treating me like I had moved in and invited me to go visit them any time). You guys really blessed me :) God's abundant blessings to you as well! =)

*Back in L.A: I re-united with my really good friend after 10 years! We were friends in primary school in Kenya but she moved to Canada and I hadn't seen her since then. That was also part of God's set-up for me. Just by spending time with her I got really convicted to how much I'm not myself anymore, how much I've changed in a negative way. But it wasn't all about painful convictions lol. Just by spending time with her and catching up I was really encouraged by what God was doing in her life. So thanks for sharing your life with me Mekdime! May God keep blessing you and I'm excited for your future!!! See you someday :-)

*So yeah that's the "gist" of my winter break hahaha. There's one thing I haven't shared yet has to do with dreams and prophecy- I'll share that later. But to stay on topic (Love), God also taught me (through a dream) about the other type of love- the most famous type: the love between a man and a woman in holy matrimony. So pretty much God told me that He's got me so I should just live my life, delight myself in Him and follow the passions He places in my heart as a result then along the way, as I'm living for Him and doing me, He'll bring along the one He has in store for me. So yeah, I don't have to live a life of fear, worry and strife like the world does because my Father, the Creator, is also my Match-maker and He's great at His job since He knows me even better than I know myself :) Later on he confirmed that message to me through this video. It's really powerful. Check it out when you have time: Real Marriage.

*After spending time with the lovely Mekdime we went back home and shared our testimonies with family (and more tears were shed despite my efforts to prevent them) which lead to some reconciliation =) And that was my Winter break. God is awesome! All glory to Him :-)

*K that's it. So yeah this whole experience just showed me how lovesick I am ( how I miss experiencing God's love directly to me as I am and His love for me through others- fellowship) and it propelled me on a journey to the past in search of "home, love, and family....back to who I was, on to find my future..." I talk about the start of this journey in my Remember post.

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Conclusion: A Call to LOVE

So why did I have to share all this? Why did God set me up during Winter break and directed me to this Love issue? Because it's URGENT!

*During Fall the book of 1 John came up a lot for me. And looking at it again now it's all about LOVE- Not loving the world so that we can love God with our all and it talks a lot about God's great love for us and also about loving one another in truth. Read the whole book it's just 5 chapters.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." (1 John 4:7)

Romans 13

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.

So yeah we can't treat this topic lightly because like Misty's song says: "When it’s all been said, when it’s all been done. When the race is run, well it all comes down to love. Did you learn to love? That’s what You will ask of me." So yeah, let's fast and pray about this!

Practicals

1. Pray against fear since that's what keeps us from loving: fear of man and fear of rejection. Let's seek God and revere Him only and love Him with our all. (Read 1 John 4 "...There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...")

2. Pray for freedom for yourself- to be free to be yourself, who God calls you to be. You can't love if you are not yourself. (Check out: Winter Rains)

3. Let's pray for healing and reconciliation in our families- pray against all barriers of love.

4. We also need to give ourselves away to God fully (worship) and give ourselves away to each other (being ourselves. sharing. fellowship). Loving each other with actions and in truth. Read 1 John 3: 16-20.

Let's make this song our prayer:

Dear God, please teach me how to love you more. "Teach me your way, O LORD, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name." (Psalm 86:11) And help me let go of all hurts, fears and insecurities; all the masks and walls that I've put up. To let go of all that so that I can be myself and let Your love flow through me and from others to me. In Jesus' powerful name, Amen! =)

Here's the video of our experience. Enjoy! =)

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

(1 Corinthians 13:13)