“When you ask God to give you love for people, He doesn’t give you love, He gives you the opportunity to love.”

One early morning as I was reading my daily devotionals, Joshua 22 verse 5 popped out at me: 

“But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you: to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to keep his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.” 

My heart was filled with gratitude to the Lord for His word as I prayed for Him to show me how to apply this to my life.
Two days later, I came across an e-mail from one of my fellow missionary friends from Nigeria who was requesting prayer for a need they had at the moment (James 5:13). They requested that 50 people pray about donating £20 to help pay for a family member’s urgent surgery that would save his eyesight. 

I strongly felt in my spirit that I was to be one of the 50 people to donate towards the surgery. However, we had absolutely no money. Immediately, I remembered Joshua 22:

“Love the Lord walk in His ways and OBEY His commandments.” 

So, I prayed that the Lord would supply the money needed so I could obey Him and donate the £20. 

At the end of the day, a friend of ours gave us a red envelope with £20 in it. I immediately thought about everything we needed in our house. My wife had mentioned to me that we needed some food for our daughter’s packed lunch that she takes to school. However, in my spirit I knew that the money in the envelope was not meant for us. I went home got my son, and went for walk to visit my Nigerian friends across the campus. I gave them our offering of obedience and shared how blessed I was in the whole process. 

I remember a film I watched once called “Bruce Almighty”. In this movie, the actor Morgan Freeman plays God, and in one of the scenes he says something that I never forgot:

“When you ask God to give you love for people, He doesn’t give you love, He gives you the opportunity to love.”

That morning I had asked the Lord for £20 to bless that family, and during my devotionals two days before, God generated in me the opportunity to bless my fellow missionary friends: He led me to understand how I should show my love for Him in my life through radical obedience to Him. You see, for me those £20 were worth a lot more than just a little bit of money, It represented a new stepping-stone in the most valuable relationship I have.

So ask you, my fellow believers, How much is your obedience to God worth?

Thiago Souza.