Compelled by Love

As mentioned, yesterday I went to listen to Heidi Baker talk at MIT. It was a really good talk. She is so confident in who she is and how much God loves her, that she is an excellent speaker. She tells the craziest stories and does the silliest things.

She had several really important key points to her talk:
1. We are all loved equally by God. Although God thinks it's important to help and serve the poor, he doesn't love them more than the rich. God wants to see all people come to know Him. She had a pretty interesting vision while she was hanging out in Harvard Square.

2. God wants to make smart people smarter. This was a pretty good point considering she was talking to an MIT crowd. She talked about how God wants to download strategies and theories into people's brains to help solve world problems (like poverty). God is infinitely smarter than we are and has solutions that we've never thought of, or never even thought to think of. I guess I just always think it's cool when anyone reminds us that God gave us the gifts and talents we have and that He wants to magnify them for his glory & purpose.

3. Those 2 are great points, but the thing that stuck with me the most was this thought: What would my (your) life look like if I was 100% confident in God's love for me? If I knew so deeply that God loves me inspite of all my short comings. Heidi has such a intimate connection with God that if she makes a mistake, it doesn't matter because she knows God is still 100% behind her. This point, I guess, is especially relevant to me as a mom because there are so many different ways & theories on how to raise your children...and there is so much room for error. You are bound to make mistakes. But if I (we) can be so confident and filled with God's love for us and others, everything else just melts away...knowing that his grace and love fills in all the cracks of our mistakes.

I was thinking about what Heidi does - living with and serving the poor and dying. She's done this since 1996...that's 13 years and counting. I think any normal person would get burnt out...you would have to living and working with such bleak conditions. The only way it is possible is with God's love and energy. I'm sure she goes to him daily (if not more often) for a filling of new life and energy. You think of how many social workers get burnt out from their job and they aren't even seeing half the stuff that Heidi sees all the time.

Anyhow, those are my random thoughts for the day.