What happens when a Wedding Feast turns into a refugee bread line?
Did you hear about this wedding dinner?
The stories about the crisis in Syria & the mass exodus of so many refugees has been heavy on my heart. I came across this story a few days ago & was blown away by the love & compassion of this special couple.
Fethullah Üzümcüoğlu and Esra Polat were preparing for their wedding day in Turkey. As preparations were being made the father of the groom had this idea. What if, instead of having the traditional wedding dinner after the ceremony, what if we instead used that money & this opportunity to serve our Syrian brothers & sisters who are hungry? And that’s just what they did.
Fethullah shared the idea with his soon to be bride & she agreed that this was exactly what they should do. So, all dressed in his suit & she in her wedding gown, they served some 4,000 refugees dinner that night after their wedding!
I love this story. Don’t you? It points us to what life must be like in the Kingdom of Heaven. I don’t know if Fethullah and Esra are believers in Jesus but their actions reflect His love & His character. This looks like the kind of thing followers of Jesus would do.
This story makes me ask a few hard questions…
How can we love others lavishly?
In 1 John 3.1, we read these words, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” God has been so kind & so generous towards us. If we’re honest, if all God ever did was give us Jesus that would have been enough. Actually, that would have been more than enough! But God in His grace & mercy didn’t stop there. He continues to bless us every day in big ways & small ways. He continually lavishes His love & His gifts upon us. I think the question we have to ask ourselves is, “How can we love others the way God has loved us?” “How can we forgive others the way He has forgiven us?” “How can we continually bless others, even when they’re underserving, the way God has blessed us when we’re underserving?”
How can we extravagantly display His kindness & generosity to those in need?
As the people of God I believe we’re called to lead the way in displaying kindness & generosity to others. I can’t help but think of the millions of Syrian refugees at the moment. The question I’m asking myself is, “How do we, followers of Jesus, step into the gap?” I know there are already so many organizations, Christian & humanitarian, that are doing so much. For that I’m grateful. But we, especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus, shouldn’t we be involved in prayer, in giving, in sharing to help all those displaced, marginalized & in need? What I love about Fethullah and Esra is that they did this in an extravagant way. When we love others in extravagant ways we mirror the extravagant love of our God to the world.
How can we lay down our lives, our wants, our dreams to lift up the name of Jesus & lift up those around us in need?
Jesus once fed some 4000 people too. His actions were also motivated by love & compassion for people in need. With just seven loaves of bread & a few small fish Jesus did the unimaginable. He fed them all. May we, today, offer what little we feel like we have to the God of the universe for the sake of others. May we, today, be motivated by love & compassion for others to the point of unparalleled action that announce the Kingdom of Heaven is here!
Whenever we do this Jesus is magnified & people turn to Him.
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What happens when a wedding feast turns into a refugee dinner for 4000 people? NEW POST >> http://t.co/PcTuUW8lK9
— coreytrevathan (@coreytrevathan) September 10, 2015
