I had planned to spend my 2015 vacation with my friends travelling through the picturesque Balkan countries. Whenever I thought of the unique landscapes, wide spaces and the new tastes that awaited me on that trip, I got very excited. I looked forward to spending time with people whom God had joined me with. However, while waiting to go on the trip, a strange thought came up in me, one that was incongruent with my joy- a thought that almost suppressed it but later became very intriguing. A thought, not to go for the trip, that God Himself wanted to spend the holiday with me. I did not argue: – ?Dad, what do you mean I’m not going anywhere? I want to go with them! – I said you will go alone!? He did it quietly, as He normally does by simply changing the desire of my heart.
He took me to a wilderness in the South of Poland, which I had longed to visit. I rented a room somewhere in the mountains and headed there. Although I was working as a manager in a medical company at the time, in my heart there was a desire to work at place that was directly involved in helping people. The closer I got to my departure date, the clearer I saw that God wanted to spend time with me alone to prepare me for a ministry. So I took with me many notes and teachings about serving, though I grew weary at the thought of listening and reading them all. But God is in the habit of doing things His own way.
I remember my first prayer. For a long time I had been thinking about how Jesus was motivated to serve by compassion. Compassion, which I did not find in myself. I am not only talking about heartache or the thought of how sorry we are. Jesus saw a need, pain or helplessness, and His answer was an action. He acted because He loved.
Almost everyone who sees someone in a difficult situation feels compassion for them. We are sorry when see on TV flashes of wars, but usually, we prefer to change the channel. I believe that what does not allow us to turn a blind eye, but to instead act, is love. Love is a bond that binds compassion to action.
The desire to love like Jesus certainly burned in me. I asked Him for love to act instantly in response to a need, the kind that comes naturally because we are certainly unable to show this kind of compassion by ourselves. It is always easier to choose to look aside. There will always be a wise excuse for the lack of a response. I wanted that to end in my life.
I knew I wanted His revelation of love. I knew I needed the revelation of Christ to never pass by anyone again. For the perfect expression of love is only one – Jesus was sent to the cross by the Father for our salvation. For the first time I deeply and consciously came into terms with the reality of verse 16 of the 3rd chapter of the Gospel of John:
For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
This immeasurable verse talks about love that can not be understood!
God the Father loved man without guarantee of reciprocity. He was not even assured that he would at least be grateful to Him. There was no certainty that man would choose to benefit from this gift of abundance which is the death and resurrection of the Son. The Father did not just speak of His love, but showed it through sacrificing His Son to save man. It?s the kind of love that is followed by an action.
I then became convinced that the love by which I was loved by the Father was key, the beginning of every act of serving. It had to be the motivation of every action I take.
While in the mountains, I began to ask God to search and cleanse my motives. You know, when we ask Him for such things, we soon discover that we are really bad people because He, in response to our request, highlights every slightest irregularity in our heart. Not to condemn us, though but so that we can reach for grace and be able to straighten up our motives.
God is in the habit of doing things His own way. The notes and teachings about serving that I had carried with me I hid in my bag. God worked on my heart and revealed His love to me.
During the ten days that I spent with God, I became certain that I had been called to love. That this was what my entire life was about and this was how my love would look in action. I may naturally be an introvert, but in Christ I am an extrovert of love!
On the last day I wrote: And with the end of summer comes something new. Something new for which I am very happy, although I do not yet know what it is.
This took place in August 2015, and by January 2016 I was in my apartment in Gdansk, packing one suitcase to India and many boxes with the rest of my things to Lodz. From February I would start working at a foundation helping victims of human trafficking. At that time, I had been interested in the subject for five years, and I had the desire to do something more about it. Our first task was to create a shelter for women who had been victims of human trafficking. For me it meant one thing – the ability to love. Before I found myself in Lodz, I spent two weeks in India on a mission trip. There I clearly experienced that my possibilities are very limited, but it does not matter because the possibilities of God are not. In July, the first people came to our safe house, and I began to discover how much man can destroy another man. In the midst of this destruction the Lord also showed me that in this unbelievable pain His love is the answer. At the end of October, in my apartment this time in Lodz, I prepared for another mission trip, this time to Mozambique. God taught me through this that when He calls, He also provides. Today I am preparing for a new journey again.
When I remember and recall those moments spent with God in the mountains, I see clearly that it is there that He introduced me to the road of love even though I had no idea how it would look like. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and surprised at what He did in and through my life in such a short time. I am expecting more.
This is my story, but there is also one for you too. I can not retell it. Nobody can. That’s why I would like to challenge you: where will the way of love lead you, if you follow it?