A Cry for Pattaya

A woman sleeps in a doorway in Pattaya

At various times during these two weeks, I have been overwhelmed with a deep sorrow, a gut-wrenching, physically tangible pain. It is truly heartbreaking to see the sadness in the eyes of people, the struggle just to gather the basics, basics that I take so much for granted that it seldom even occurs to me to think that they are a privilege - things like safe shelter, clean water, clothing, transport... things like love, and relationship, and stability.

Sorting items for recycling at Siem Reap garbage dump

 It hurts so much to hear their stories, so often stories of desperate need and hopelessness and self-sacrifice; dreams and hopes turned to dust in the grim reality of just surviving. 


And when Malina told us about the children, and took us on a prayer walk in one of the areas where there are children's brothels, I felt as though my heart could just break and scatter into a million little pieces. So much injustice; so much wrong doing. How can it ever be healed? 

And then I went to God. I went to ask Him for advice on what to do, because I could see that this sorrow could crush and destroy me and make me ineffective ... but He had sent me here to bring His life and His light  And He told me that my tears were precious to Him. He said not to be afraid of the grieving, because it is the kind of  grieving that comes out of compassion, and He can use it. Compassion is creative, not hopeless. The tears become intercession. But he also warned me to bring it to Him and to keep giving it to Him, because yes, it really is too heavy for a little human heart to carry...

And He showed me Lamentations 3 & 4 ... and it has become my prayer and an expression of compassion over people here in Pattaya:

How the gold has lost its lustre, the fine gold become dull!

The sacred gems are scattered at every street corner.

How the precious children of Asia, once worth their weight in gold,

 are now considered as pots of clay, the work of a potter's hands!

Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, 

but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert.

Because of thirst the infant's tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth; 

the children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them.

Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets; 

those brought up in royal purple now lie on ash heaps.

Yet this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:  


Because of the Lord's great love 
we are not consumed, 
for his compassions never fail.
they are new every morning; 
great is Your faithfulness.


I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, 
to the one who seeks Him;
it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord, 
for no one is cast off by the Lord forever.
Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, 
so great is his unfailing love.
For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.
Streams of tears flow from my eyes because my people are destroyed.
My eyes will flow unceasingly, without relief, 
until the Lord looks down from heaven and sees.
What I see brings grief to my soul because of all the women of this city.

Lamentations 4: 1 - 5, 3: 22 - 26, 3: 49 - 51

We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; 

and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 

But whoever has the world’s goods, 

and sees his brother in need 

and closes his heart against him, 

how does the love of God abide in him? 

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, 

but in deed and truth. 

~ 1 John 3:16-18

Operation Extreme Love, Pattaya, Thailand - Day 4, Friday

Craig and me with Ken, Shari and Joseph

This morning we had opportunity to share experiences and then we had an excellent teaching by Ken on praying for healing. He spoke of how healing often begins first in the soul; that the person knowing they are accepted and loved is what makes the difference. He reminded us of how Jesus would go after the least acceptable and the least loved people, and reminded us that we are not here to judge, but to show the unconditional love and mercy of God. 

Pu and Rose, our wonderful interpreters

After lunch, half our team went to the hospital to pray for the sick, and the other half made posters advertising ‘Free prayer’ and then went down to the beach where we had a great afternoon.


 I prayed with Joseph for a fellow who had cut his toe rather badly on broken glass, and then I went off to the pharmacy and bought some dressings and Betadine to clean it, and we cleaned it up and bandaged it for him. I know about sore toes! Ideally he needs not to walk on the foot for a while, but he is a street person, and I understand that it is going to be hard for him to follow this advice...

Releasing the birds

Meanwhile, Ken and Shari had got talking to some youngsters who were selling small brown birds, much like sparrows. They catch the birds in traps, and then sell them to people on the street, and people release them for ‘good luck’. Well, Joseph, Shari and I - all animal lovers - wanted to set the birds free, so we asked what it would cost to buy some. They were 100 Baht a pair. We spoke to the rest of our team and people contributed and soon  we were able to buy 10 of the little birds. But before we did so, we chatted with the boys and Rose from Cambodia shared the story of how she came to know Jesus, and they both ended up asking us to pray with them and they requested Bibles and wanted to know where they could go to church to learn more. And a young girl who was sitting nearby overheard all this and she suddenly started crying, and so we spoke with her, and she shared that she was from Cambodia and that she had had a fight with her boyfriend and so team members prayed with her too. 


And then Shari and Joseph and I selected our birds and we asked two Thai girls we had spoke to earlier to come and help us release them. And we decided to release them as a prophetic and symbolic act (1) of the presence of the Holy Spirit in Pattaya, (2) a reminder that God cares about every living thing, small and big, and if His eye is on the sparrow, then it is certainly on all the people we have spoken with this week, and (3) of our hope that those who are in captivity here – mental or physical – will be free one day... I thought very much of the children in the sex trade at this point. It was a special thing to do...

Sharing love with an Englishman

Christin had been playing the guitar in the background all this time, and a man from Liverpool had come over to chat with her. He looked as if he had lived a hard life. They talked for a long time and then Helen joined them and he ended up praying to receive Jesus. And Tassannee, one of the interpreters (what a formidable personality!), came and encouraged him to come to her church, because it is an international church and the service is in English. He said he would think about doing so. 


We went back to our hotel for a while. Later, we divided into our teams for the evening. Craig's  team went to Walking street, where the bar scene is pretty blatant, and as you walk past the bars you are offered menus by scantily dressed girls - menus not for food, but with a list of sexual acts and the price. Rough stuff! 

Some of the staff of HON

Our team went first to visit HON. HON is an organisation that offers health advice and counselling for HIV positive ladyboys (transgender people). We were welcomed with so much honour. It was a very humbling experience. They freely and graciously answered all our questions, many of which were very personal. Their hearts were completely to try to help us understand. In many cases, their stories were heartrendingly sad. Kim ended up asking if we could bless them as a group, and she shared about standing in the place of another person, and asked if we could stand in the place of those who had rejected and wounded them and ask for forgiveness. This they were very willing to do and we prayed for them and it was very emotional all round. Visiting Hon was a very worthwhile experience. 


Later we went to visit a transgender bar, and this was a real challenge for the mind. We were surrounded by exceptionally beautiful women... but not one of them WAS a woman. They look like women and act like women, but they are actually male. Often called ladyboys in Thailand, but our interpreter said we should be careful about doing this, as it could be an insult... many of them prefer just to be known as transgender people. We had conversations with a few of them. They were very open and happy to share about their lives. In some cases it was the parents who had, from an early age, treated them as if they were little girls rather than boys. As teenagers they had taken female hormones. And later they had had surgical breast implants. 

Craig and I, comparing notes later, agreed that – for different reasons - it had been probably our most difficult evening in Pattaya. We went out for a very late supper to a small German restaurant. Our waitress was lovely. Her name was ‘On’ and she said how happy she was to work for her boss, because he was a very kind man, and very good to his staff. But she said she was concerned because the restaurant did not seem to be very busy. So we asked if we could pray with her for the business to be blessed, and she said yes please, and we did. We asked her never to consider working in the bars... and she said she did not want to. I said I would come and look for her at the restaurant when I come to Thailand again. She laughed! And so the difficult evening ended well, with us catching a glimpse of a different side of life here...

It is not the amount that God sees, 

but the condition of our hearts

He doesn't require much, but he does require all....

Have you given your all to God? 

God does not look on how much or how little we have, 

but how willing we are to give of ourselves.

~ Mark Roye

Operation Extreme Love, Pattaya, Thailand - Day 3, Wednesday

Breakfast in the hotel is delicious, and it sets one up for the busy day! There is such a lot of food to choose from. Of course rice is always one of the options... and a very delicious fish in butter sauce dish... many Thai foods... fruit, salad, toast.... eggs, French toast with maple syrup... just about anything you would like. No cheese though! For breakfast today I had an omlette, made with such care by the chef. He honoured me not just in the making of the food, but in the way he made it. The Thais are people of honour. It seems peculiar that sex tourism, which is so dishonouring, thrives alongside the honouring culture.

We started our sessions today with an introduction to Tamar, a YWAM organisation that helps girls who would like to leave the sex trade to train for other jobs. Tamar offers shelter,vocational  training and support, and works to restore the girl to her community. In many cases the girls have come from North Thailand where there is a lot of poverty, and the elusive dream of a rich Western husband attracts them to Pattaya. Tamar was founded in 1999 in Pattaya, and now also has a prevention centre in the province of Isaan. This year they hope to open another two centres in Isaan. Prevention, as we all know, is better than cure...


We also heard about True Friends Fellowship, which reaches out to young people, homeless people, and newcomers to the city. Part of Bridges of Hope Foundation, their Welcome Centre provides job counselling for individuals coming to Pattaya who could be at risk for entering the sex trade. True Friends meets on Sunday afternoons, and also joins with a group of homeless people on Dong Tan beach for lunch and fellowship on Wednesday mornings.
 
After a short break, we signed up for different teams and some went onto the streets with Tamar to speak to bar girls, and others went to the beach. Craig and I joined the team that went to Dong Tan  beach with True Friends Fellowship. This is a weekly event;  they take food to the beach, where they eat together with homeless people and socialise with them, and try to help with various problems they may be experiencing. To give one example, if a person is HIV positive, but does not have an ID card, he cannot go to the hospital for medical treatment. True Friends helps him get an ID card so that he can receive medical help. They also keep an eye out for newcomers to the city, and if they are youngsters, try to arrange for them to be sent back home again to safety. Young teens come to Pattaya because they think they will get rich here. But they don’t know what kind of exploitation happens. 

Prayer walk on the beach

We started off with a walk along the beach pathway, praying for the people we would spend time with that day. We came back along the beach. It was lovely to get my feet in a warm sea again . Near the car park, True Friends volunteers had set up mats, and there were already a number of homeless people there. We sat down and sang for a while and others came to join us. 

Worship followed by lunch with homeless people

One fellow, Keng, stank of cheap alcohol, but he was so kind, jumping up to get water for us and making sure that we all had a good spot to sit. I talked with him for a long time. The 
most significant thing I have found out these 
two weeks is that truly, the poor are Jesus in a distressing disguise, just as Mother Teresa said. She said of her nuns: “We must therefore be proud of our vocation, which gives us the opportunity to serve Christ in His poorest…in the slums, Jesus chooses as His disguise the miseries and poverty of our people in the slums. You cannot have the vow of charity if you have not got the faith to see Jesus in the people we contact. Otherwise our work is no more than social work…we do it for Somebody.” 


And she also said “...for whatever we do to them, to the little ones, we do it to Jesus. He has said so, it must be so.” Yes! I understand this on a deeper level now. Underneath the offensive, unpleasant exterior, is a person. A real person, with dreams, hopes and aspirations, just like me. And often a person who is carrying so much sorrow that you wonder how he or she is managing to survive at all. It is eye-opening. No-one gets their life into such a mess without some deep and painful reason. For example....Keng came to Pattaya from the poverty stricken North East of Thailand as a young man. He hoped to find a way of making good money, and dreamed of making a better life for himself. In Pattaya he met a man who said he loved him, and who took him with him to Switzerland, where Keng lived with him for a season. Sadly, after a while, this man found himself another boyfriend. Keng, stranded  far from home, and on a tourist visa, eventually made enough money to go back to Thailand by selling himself. Back in his village he found nothing but rejection, and so he returned to Pattaya. By now he had begun drinking, and at some point he became a drug addict. Although someone of whom he speaks highly rescued him from his situation, and found him a job cooking for a children’s home, his behavioural problems (he said he has a problem with anger), resulted in him losing his job. Now he lives on Dong Tan beach, Pattaya. He is 36 years old. I said that was young, and not too old to make a change. He just laughed... but with very sad eyes.

Meow interpreting for Craig 

Later, lunch in hand, a man caught my eye. He was sitting alone on the low brick wall behind us. I invited him to join us, but he said no. So Craig and I went to sit with him. The waves of sadness that emanated from him were huge and very tangible. I gave him my lunch. Suddenly I had lost my appetite. After he had eaten, I got hold of an interpreter, and said that I felt much sadness coming from him... was this true? He said ‘Yes’.


Do you remember what I said my clues were from the Treasure Hunt the night before? I had beach, sadness, broken... and a sense that some of my treasure would be found the next day? I was encouraged to see that God knew about this man, and that He is bigger than all our hurts, and He is always present... So  I said that God cared. That He knew. That He had asked me to come to Thailand, because He loved the people of Thailand. Him included. I asked if I could pray and ask God to help him. He said ‘Yes’. I prayed, and then Craig talked with him, and prayed with him some more. He prayed with Craig to ask God to be part of his life and to help him with his sadness. Afterwards, he said he felt lighter. And he smiled.... 

And he smiled....

So maybe it’s not much, what we could do for him. But maybe it did help him a little; to know that for that moment, someone cared?  Back at our hotel our interpreter told me that she knows this man, and that he is HIV positive, and that he too lives on the beach, because he has nowhere else  to go. 


Meanwhile, a woman had come to sit next to me, and the moment I stopped praying for the man, she interrupted and said please could I pray for her as well. I asked what for... and she said started off talking about her business and so I prayed for her that it would be blessed and that things would go well for her, and then she got to the real issue, namely that she wanted to follow Jesus;she said that she had been thinking about it for a while but that now she had made her decision. So it was very special to lead her in the sinner’s prayer.And as I was praying for her, I asked God if he would please help her to leave the bad things and to follow the good and she looked at me with a shocked expression and asked if I was a fortune teller! I said no. She then asked how it was that I knew exactly what she was thinking, because at the moment I had prayed this about the bad and the good, that had been her precise thought. Amazing stuff! So I said that God knew everything, and that I had just prayed what I thought was important. We were both encouraged!  Patricia King commented about the Lord “giving us the treasures of darkness, the secret wealth of hidden places..." These people are treasures of darkness. They are secret wealth of hidden places. They are the treasures of the kind Jesus spoke of in Luke 15. And when we find them, their beauty shines forth...

Back at the hotel, we had a group photo taken, and then the founder of Tamar spoke. Tamar is a wonderful advocate for the bar girls of Pattaya. An excellent ministry in every way, it has been good to learn from and to team with them this week. We then said farewell to Mike and Mark (M &M) of Blood-N-Fire ministries; they fly home to the USA this evening. It has been such a privilege to run shoulders with such giants these last 10 days. 

Right now I am comfortably settled in my air-conditioned hotel room. Craig is out with the other men of the team – they had a special men’s session this evening, including dinner. I am really tired and I am looking forward to a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow will be another good but challenging day. My group will be praying for the sick on the beach in the afternoon, and spending time with ‘ladyboys’ in the evening. 

Operation Extreme Love, Pattaya, Thailand - Day 2, Tuesday

Today, like every day, began with a time of worship and prayer for the people of Pattaya. And then we had an excellent talk from Dianne Doell, who together with her husband, founded the Mercy Centre. What they have achieved is quite astonishing. And what a heart this little old lady has. Nothing to look at at first glance, she becomes more and more of a giant the longer you listen to her. I would be delighted to find that at her age I am just like Dianne. What a role model !  Amongst other things, she spoke about how faith needs the trigger of compassion so that you become the one willing to put yourself in the gap. Out of this insight the Mercy Centre was birthed, an organisation that abounds in projects that do exactly that. 

Outside the children's ward

In the afternoon, I went to the children's ward at the hospital with The Bridge Children's Centre, an organisation that mainly offers after school care, occasional night care, and support to single-parent families where the mother works in the bars and brothels at night. We packed up food parcels, toys and baby blankets, and off we went. I had asked to hand out the baby blankets. This turned out to be a wonderful thing, because I went with an interpreter into the neonatal wards and spent time talking to mothers of 2 and 3 day old babies. I itched to hold those little ones, but had to be content with a touch. I did get to cuddle a 5 month old for a while.... They were all just adorable!!!

In the evening Mike spoke on the topic of Sonship and Identity Issues, and about servanthood that flows out of knowing who you are as a child of God rather than servanthood because you are trying to prove something. It was a challenging but beautiful talk. Afterwards he prayed for anyone who felt insecure about the love of the Father... 

And then it was time for Treasure Hunts! The basic principle in a treasure hunt is that you ask God for clues about who He wants you to speak to (treasures), write down whatever comes to mind, and then go out looking. I think Treasure Hunts will be fun - once I stop being intimidated by them... 


Our group had a rather random collection of clues. Mine included beach, sadness, broken, and the song 'Beautful Things'. I also had a sense that some of my treasure would not be found that evening, but the next day... As a group, we had a very successful evening... our team chatted to a couple of bar girls, one of whom ended up asking to go to Tamar. In Buddhism people can request a blessing, so it was lovely to ask if we could pray for a blessing from God for them; this was well received, and proved to be a way of caring for people, because they would then open up and share what problems they had and what blessings they needed. A few members of our team had a clue about a fortune teller, and so we went off along the beachfront, where someone remembered seeing a fortune teller in the afternoon. Sure enough, there she was, spreading cards for a lady who had come to her for advice. We waited patiently until she was finished, and then asked if we could talk with them. I ended up chatting with the lady who had come for advice - her name was Pet. As in so many cases, I felt a burden of sadness coming from her. I asked if this was true, and she said yes, she was very sad, and she then told me of many problems that she had. She spoke fairly good English, but we were also helped by our interpreter, the wonderful Meaow. I said that God loved her. She asked how I knew this. So I told her about God speaking to me and Craig about coming to Thailand a year ago, and about me not wanting to come at all.

Pet, you are loved....

She laughed at this. I said that when I prayed, God kept asking me: ‘Will you go to Thailand for me?’ And so I asked Him why He wanted me to go... and He said it was because He loves Thailand and He loves the people of Thailand. And so I came to Thailand. I said that I felt sure He sent me because He wants me to tell the people I meet that He cares about them. And I said that this evening I had asked the Lord to show me His treasure and I had meandered here and there and then I had come to her. So I had this message for her, namely that God loves her, and that He sent me all the way to Thailand to look for her because she is treasure, and she matters, and He knows all about her and her problems. And she put her head in my lap and cried.... and so did I!  And then I asked if I could pray for her and she said yes, so I did and I suggested that she ask Jesus for advice every day about her situation and listen for His answers, and she said she would do this. We invited her to come to the banquet that was being held by the team with Tamar on Thursday. And we gave her the contact details for ‘True Friends’, an agency that helps people in Pattaya. And we hugged each other for what seemed like ages. She kept saying: 'I don't know this kind of love....' It was hard to leave....

I find in the night-time I often feel overwhelmed with the pain and sadness of the things that are happening to people in this city. I find tears running down my cheeks at regular intervals. This is true of many of the team members. It’s hard. But you know, we can choose not to feel - but then we don’t care either. And it is out of the caring that possible answers and solutions come. I asked God what to do with this sorrow. And He said that our tears are pleasing to Him, because they are the tears of compassion, and that He can use them. But to keep offering them up to Him as prayer, so that the burden does not become too heavy for us to carry. So this is what I have been doing in the night hours... praying for every woman and boy and child who find themselves trapped and in bondage, psychological or physical, to this horrendous thing called sex tourism...

We can’t help everyone, 

but everyone can help someone.
 ~Dr Loretta Scott

Operation Extreme Love, Pattaya, Thailand - Day 1, Monday

Well, we are in Pattaya. A big, busy and bewildering city after Poi Pet. The hotel is beautiful. Major mental re-adjustment required....

Crossing the border into Thailand

We left Poi Pet just after 08h00 yesterday. It took a while to get through the border - they were doing random checks for drugs and Claire's suitcase got picked. Needless to say we teased this lovely, demure English lady about it; she most certainly looks like a drug smuggler!


Apart from this incident, the trip to Pattaya was uneventful. We travelled together in a van with the Extreme Love leadership team, and chatted or dozed all the way.

Thailand

We arrived in Pattaya at about 14h00. The Sunbeam Hotel is beautiful, and one of the best things about my room - after our week in Poi Pet - is the hot shower! Craig arrived an hour after me; he had been down in the gym. Needless to say, it was just marvellous to see him...

We went out for supper with Shani and Claire, who had also come for both outreaches. There is a huge shopping mall nearby, and it has a food court that is amazing in terms of variety of food to choose from. I ended up with stir-fried noodles and chicken and egg. It was very tasty.... and much as we appreciated our food in Poipet, nice to eat something other than rice!

To be honest, I found the transition between Poipet and Pattaya quite tough. For starters, I felt as though I had left my heart behind in Poipet, and it was difficult to engage with the new vision and purpose for this week. Secondly, there is such a contrast between the two cities. Poipet is so poor! And Pattaya swarms with people and shops and traffic and life. Third, it is another language when I am just beginning to find the sound of Khmer familiar. And fourth, the people are more like the people in any large city, busy with their own affairs. After a week of smiles and greetings from people everywhere I go, this felt strange...

In the evening we had an introductory session during which Bart spoke about sex tourism and  introduced some of the organisations and ministries that work with the bar girls here in Pattaya. We also met our new interpreters, and got to know each other a bit. It feels such a privilege to be here along with such high calibre people - just like in the Operation Justice team for Poi Pet, we find people who are willing, no, eager, to pay the price of seeking and implementing change in these situations. Light shining in the darkness.....

And then it was off to bed, and we were very pleased to do so! It had been a tiring day...

Today has been an orientation day. This morning Bart spoke on the values of XP. Then we heard from Cath who volunteers with Tamar, a YWAM organisation that helps bar girls in different ways... giving support, showing them options for a different way of life, teaching English, and running courses for bar girls who would like to leave prostitution and find different jobs. Training offered at present is in baking, hairdressing, card-making and computer skills. the training programme is residential and runs for three months. One of the things we will be able to do this week is tell bar girls about Tamar so that they know. 

Malina then came to share some important points about Thai culture and customs. In the context of a different culture and religion (Thailand is a 98% Buddhist country), it is important to be careful not to offend in our efforts to help. 


We were also given a useful strategy for dealing with the negative feelings we might feel when we see an older Western man with a young woman or child, namely to respect and love them for who they were meant to be, even while we long to stop what is happening. 


Lunch was back at the mall, and it was good. I had a Thai Green curry. The Food Hall is amazing. There is so much food to choose from! Have a look at the photos to see what I mean.... they were taken at the section where I ordered my curry, but there are at least 5 more sections like it.

In the afternoon we had a brilliant teaching session on Intercession with Kim, and then we divided into groups and went off to pray in specific areas of the city. I went with Malina's group, to pray in an area where trafficked children are taken. It was quiet, sleepy seeming, but the atmosphere was oppressive. We walked from street to street, asking God for deliverance for the children. 

Prayer walk in a child brothel area

Back at the hotel I had a short while to freshen up, and then it was back to the Mall, to a different restaurant, for supper. I walked with one of the interpreters, a lovely lady who will be visiting England later this year. I said she should certainly come and visit us. There were many interesting things to eat at this restaurant as well, but I stuck to my idea to eat Thai food in Thailand, and had the Pad Thai recommended by a Facebook friend who comes from Thailand... and it was very good. 

In the evening we had a fantastic teaching session with Bart about the everlasting love of God. Tonight there is an optional outreach to a brothel, but Craig and I have decided to get a good night’s sleep – tomorrow is a full day and as I saw last week, the pace picks up more and more as the week goes by.  And so ‘Goodnight’...

Notes from a Talk on Extreme Love by Bart Hadaway

Bart teaching the team in Pattaya

Bart Hadaway serves as a pastoral and spiritual overseer at Extreme Prophetic Ministries with Patricia King.

There are common threads between believers and unbelievers with regard to problems and struggles.

This shouldn’t be. But it makes sense that it is so – the enemy is not that concerned about unbelievers, but he is concerned about believers. Ultimately his assault is directed against God. We are an integral part of God’s plans.

When Jesus makes a statement like ‘if you love one another, all the world will know...’, it makes sense that unity would be a problem for satan.

John 13:15 - 17:  I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.

The King James version translates Christ's words as: "If you know these things, happy are you if you do them"

If you DO them. It is not revelation but implementation that brings happiness.

Jesus also said: "As the Father sent Me, so I am sending you".

Ultimately it is God Who initiates and Who implements everything. We are here because God sent us.

It is imperative that we understand how Jesus was sent. He is our example. 

A revelation of the righteousness of Christ gives you bold confidence that you are pleasing and truly acceptable to God. Christians often have trouble truly believing in their hearts that God really loves them. People love God and are truly sold out to God but believe in the depths of their heart that God loves other people more than them. So then they perform to please God. This leads to a kind of spiritual gymnastics, good resolutions, and patterns of failure and discouragement. And it is never enough, no matter how hard you try.

But all the time Jesus is saying "I want to send you as the Father sent Me" – and this means to be sent as a son.

John 17:20 - 23:  "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message,that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

You have loved them even as you have loved me...

You have loved them as much as You have loved Me.

Did God love Jesus? Then He loves us. 

It is beyond the ability of natural man to comprehend – that God loves you as much as He loves Jesus.

But it is still true.

Romans 8:31 - 39: What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

Note the plurals. This is the common sense verse of the Bible. God gave His son. Why should we think anything else is held back?

Paul can teach the truth about what we all have, but being persuaded is personal. He writes: " I am persuaded that nothing can separate me from the love of God." 

My God loves me, loves me just as much as He loves His Son.

The story of the prodigal son illustrates God’s heart. 

Prodigals disrupt your perfect world. It is easy to react with anger. When God faced that issue he responded by redeeming There was a time when God asked Kim: ‘Are you going to crucify your child or are you going to get on the cross for her?

God's heart is redemption. So why come to God as though He is angry with you? His love is absolute.

When you are incapable of doubting His love you will always want Him. Our belief system should be such that our confidence in Him is completely secure. This leads to freedom and to the ability to love people.

"My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (John 4:34)

We are the same, and for the same reason. 

Why? Because He loves me. We don’t need to work for God’s love. It is a love relationship with the Father. No performance. Nothing to prove. Nothing to show. Just to be in His love. Just living in His love.

Jesus says: "As the Father sent Me, so I am sending you...As the Father loved Me, so He loves you..."

We can’t comprehend it, but we can certainly receive it.

John 17: 25 - 26: "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."‘

... that the love with which You have loved Me may be felt in their hearts... This was the prayer of Jesus.

Eph 3:17 - 19: And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Psalm 37: 4 tells us to 'delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.'

The truth is that our greatest desire is for Him. We are wired that way. 

Gal 4:6: Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba" ,Father.

The reason you are miserable when the enemy attacks is to do with the thought of not being with Him. So let Him know, just like a child crying out: "I want you Papa"

That’s the heart He has given us. 

(Note: A CD teaching by Bart & Kim Hadaway about believing God for prodigal children is available here: Hope for the Prodigal. The devil can’t have your kids. Final! )