Tag Archives: Christ

Faith, Family, Jesus, Travel

Love and the Body and DPB House

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With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it seems appropriate to talk about love, that oft-illusive thing we’re all after. I do not mean romantic love, but the enduring, self-sacrificial love that many of us have yet to encounter, even within the body of Christ. This post will not flush out all that love is or all the ways it is seen. It is meant rather to spotlight some I know who have done it well and to encourage the rest of us to learn from them.

For some time, I had been asking the Lord to teach me more about His love; and in His goodness, He prepared a way for me to learn by experience. Last June, the Lord took me across the ocean to a small group of people in an unassuming house in a little European country to surround me with His love. He surrounded me with His love by surrounding me with people who knew His love and had no greater desire than to show the love that had first been shown to them by Christ.

My two teens and I traveled to Croatia to work alongside long time friends and get a close-up view of their ministry at DPB House Training Center in Severin na Kupi, near the border with Slovenia. Drustvo Prijateja Biblije (DPB) House Training Center is a place dedicated to intentional Biblical discipleship, mentoring, ministry training and retreat. Included in the programming is Leadership Lab International — preparing and equipping young adults for cross-cultural ministry and church-planting, CREW discipleship through practical servant-hood by maintaining the facility and serving campers, and a variety of summer camps.

I was given the task of capturing the heart of the ministry on camera, an impossible task, I would soon discover. I didn’t get a photo of my teenage roommate asking me every night how my day had been as we tucked into our beds and turned off the lights. No one will ever see that she asked me to tell her about the friend I’d lost that day, or how she listened and laughed at my memories of a bold, opinionated  Italian woman who kept us all on our toes. I don’t have photos of the strong hugs and parting words, “If not before, then Heaven.” There is no evidence of an evening spent with friends on a mountaintop watching the sun sink and the fog roll in as we talked about the love of Christ and how impossible it is to meet Jesus and be unchanged. There are no photos of campfire prayers under stars in the darkness as students and campers alike poured out prayers for each other. I have nothing but my memory as evidence that someone stopped in their tracks on the way to the next scheduled event to pray for my injured husband back home. There were numerous times that impromptu prayers were offered on another’s behalf simply because a need was expressed, or even more simply because they were a brother or sister in Christ.

Teamwork, unity, kindness, service, laughter, joy, worship, fellowship, encouragement, admonishment, support, prayer, peace, hospitality, and more characterized my experience at DPB House. Truly love reigned over all because “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-6). Philippians 2, the challenge for believers in Jesus to follow His example of humility by looking to others’ interests and serving them, was not only taught but exemplified in the lives of students and leaders alike.

1 John 3 opens by telling us to SEE what kind of love (!!) the Father has given us. How does He give us His love?  He gives us His love by Christ’s death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead that makes us alive with Him when we believe in Jesus (Ephesians 2:4-9, Acts 16:31). Then He gives us His love through each other (1 John 4:7-11). It is the evidence that we know Him and abide in Him (1 John 3:23-24). Love, in a nutshell, is the giving of oneself for another. All our praiseworthy deeds are nothing without it (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

I arrived at DPB House Training Center a bit battered in spirit. I left having been ministered to in wonderfully healing ways by the love of His people, His body. I believe this is one reason we are called Christ’s body. He is the spirit that drives the action, and we are the listening ears, the praying tongues, the voices of encouragement, the arms that hug and hold, the feet that go, the hands that serve.  It is my prayer for DPB House that this would be their constant and eternal testimony. It is my prayer for the wider body of Christ wherever we are found – that all who encounter us would experience Christ’s self-sacrificing love. To Him be all the praise and glory!

 

©Erika Rice 2019

 

Daily Living, Faith, Family, Lessons, Marriage, Travel

Hold My Hand

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I love to hold my husband’s hand. I have since the very beginning. But a traveling job and five children later, that hand can be hard to grab hold of at times.  So this year, I followed him around the world just trying to catch that hand. Together, we watched the sun rise and set over the Pacific, ate salmon in Alaska, climbed the Eiffel tower at night, and rode bikes through an Amsterdam rush hour. As I made my way through various cities and tried to take it all in, the overarching charm was always that I was taking it in with him, sometimes while holding his hand.

My husband is an active man and doesn’t sit still for long, which means when I’m with him I’m on the move, too. So it was, on our second day in Paris, with aching feet and tired legs, that I reached out and took hold of his hand. The evening light was magical in a city that begs one to linger and look. But we are not the lingering kind. We had a distant destination and an imminent time limit. My active man had engaged his long stride and fast pace and thrown it into high gear. My gears were winding down, and sunset over the city was exerting its magnetic force, holding my feet in place, eyes locked on the skyline. I knew I needed to move, but felt immoveable. That’s when I said it, words that have stuck in my head all year. “If you want me to keep moving, you’ll have to hold my hand.” He held on and didn’t let go. We made it across the city. We found the open market just in time. We filled our bag with good things to eat, and made it to our hotel before collapsing into chairs and relaxing.

That one sentence, “If you want me to keep moving, you’ll have to hold my hand,” gave me plenty to ponder as his hand guided me through the Paris streets to the place he had in mind. The first thought being that that’s all I really want through all my years of marriage–to know that he’s got my hand and we’re in this together. I’ll follow him anywhere, I’ll do my best to match any pace, I’ll trust he knows where he’s going, I’ll get lost with him if he doesn’t, as long as he never lets go of my hand.

And, as one thought leads to another, I came next to the thought that marriage is the earthly picture of the heavenly relationship between Christ and his bride. When He’s holding my hand, anything is possible. I’m able to keep moving wherever He wants me to go because He’s holding my hand. His leadership is trustworthy, His strength becomes mine, and His ability gives movement to my feet. Christ is the ultimate husband, in who’s hand I always want to rest.  And He’s given me this good man to help me learn and remember what it means to be His bride.

So I reach for that hand, catch and grab hold. Whether at home or away, I pray to keep moving or appropriately sit still, knowing we’re in it together, being held by an even greater hand.

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©Erika Rice 2016

Daily Living, Faith, Lessons, Worship

Today, I’m Working on My Heart.

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Today, I’m working on my heart. Oh, but that was yesterday, too, and for sure the day before that. I seem to be in an ongoing battle for the consistent joy I desire. Some days its easy to have an attitude of gratitude. Some days simply waking up is enough to start me complaining. As the days shorten, the rain and snow fall intermittent, the dogs bring the dirt and drizzle dripping through the door, shoes litter the entry and pile neglected underfoot, I come to a realization. I have not kept a quiet heart, but find myself living in a place of unrest. I have been ignorant of the level of my discontent until I listen to my own voice time after time, unrelenting in its disapproval. Oh, I can make a very decent list of things I’m thankful for at the end of the day, and I repeat the words “thank you” to my husband and children, with sincerity, many times a day, but know that the peace of a grateful heart is not in me. It’s as if the words are needed as proof of what I’d like to be true.

The Bible describes the Christian life as a race that needs to be run with endurance (Heb. 12:1) and in such a way as to win (1 Cor. 9:24). So I determine that I have been coasting and that is no way to win. I need to pick up the pace and leap this hurdle and finish victorious. I run what feels a frantic pace into a gale force wind that leaves me striving and exhausted but having gained no ground. The only marker I’ve reached is labeled Frustration and Failure. And agitation seems to be all I can muster. I know I need the strength of another, and I think He is the One I’m pursuing. He is the reason I’m running. I keep calling His name and reaching for His hand, but feeling it all lost in the wind. Then suddenly it comes to me, and my falling frame is lifted. I am not running the race to find Him. He is already holding me. (Psalm 63:8 & 73:23). “Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you [God] hold my right hand.” And He says to me, “‘Be still, and know that I am God […]’ The Lord of hosts is with us…” (Psalm 46:10) Just like that the wind has subsided. I am at rest. The race has not ended, but I am no longer running with my legs. Like one who runs and won’t grow weary, I am lifted on the wings that also are my shelter (Isaiah 40:31 & Psalm 91:4). I do not need to frantically strive to overcome my character flaws. It never gets me anywhere. I simply need to ask Christ. Christ is my salvation and my champion. He fights the battle. He runs the race. He carries me in His arms, and someday it will be across the finish line, complete in Him.

This changes everything. I can’t help but be thankful. The attitude of gratitude comes without effort when my eyes are fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of my faith (Heb. 12:2). Tomorrow, I will not be perfect, but I will be forgiven; and my heart will be known by God, who will lead me in the right direction. (Ps. 139:23-24). Tomorrow, by God’s grace, I will rest in His unfailing love and His purpose that He promises to fulfill for me. (Psalm 138:8). Tomorrow, God is working on my heart, just as He has been all along. (Phil. 1:6).

 

©Erika Rice 2015