Moments in prayer Holy Spirit—fill us with your love!

ur February prayer focus is on prayers for the Holy Spirit to fill us with Love (Agape). This is the first quality in the fruit of the Spirit list we find in Galatians 5. The biblical concept of love as expressed through the specific Greek word agape involves the sacrificial giving of oneself for the ultimate well-being of others. It is not primarily about emotional feelings for someone (although these are wonderful and can be celebrated). Biblical love is actively lived out and is focused on what is God’s best future for the other. Actions that are unconcerned with God’s best future for others are unworthy of the name agape.

We see this love exemplified by the Triune God’s work in history and centrally demonstrated through Jesus’ birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension. Jesus is God’s great agape love embodied--forgiving sin; conquering the powers of sin, Satan, and death; and revealing what true life for humans looks like. When we pray “Holy Spirit—Fill us!” we are praying for God’s love to wash over us, to flood our inner life, and finally to stream through us so we can reflect that same sacrificial, active, and focused love today.

CONSIDER:

“THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS LOVE….” (GALATIANS 5:22A)

“FOR THE SPIRIT GOD GAVE US DOES NOT MAKE US TIMID, BUT GIVES US POWER, LOVE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE.” (2 TIMOTHY 1:7)

“IF I GIVE ALL I POSSESS TO THE POOR AND GIVE OVER MY BODY TO HARDSHIP THAT I MAY BOAST, BUT DO NOT HAVE LOVE, I GAIN NOTHING.”

(1 CORINTHIANS 13:3)

When we pray for Holy Spirit filling that produces love in us, we are praying for an ever-increasing agape love for God (cf. Luke 10:27) that bursts forward into worship. We are also praying for an ever-increasing agape love for others that shows itself in action (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:9; 1 John 4:7). We are praying for an ever-increasing agape love for God’s beautiful world (cf. John 3:16) that leads us to both enjoy and steward well this gift. And finally, we are even praying for an ever-increasing agape love for our own selves (cf. Luke 10:27) that leads us to honour and care for our bodies, hearts, and minds in the direction of the fullness of life Jesus promised (cf. John 10:10).

Praying for the Holy Spirit to fill us with the agape love of Jesus is a huge and comprehensive prayer that touches every area of our lives and through that prayer our families, our churches, our communities, and our world! May the Holy Spirit fill us with that love!

˚ What would it look like today to invite the Holy Spirit’s agape love to wash over you and to flood your inner life?

˚ Where do you need the Holy Spirit to stream out this agape love toward God? Others? Creation? And Self? (make a list for each area)

PRAY WORDS OF INVITATION AND WELCOME TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR YOUR OWN HEART:

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! Come and fill me today!

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! Wash over me and flood my life with the agape love of Jesus!

PRAY WORDS OF INVITATION AND WELCOME TO THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR YOUR CHURCH FAMILY:

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! May this agape love of Jesus overflow out of my heart into worship!

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! May this agape love of Jesus overflow out of my heart upon _________ today! (Repeat this with specific names of those in your sphere of influence. Be especially aware to include those you may find difficult to love today.)

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! May this agape love of Jesus overflow out of my heart toward God’s good world!

˚ Welcome Holy Spirit! Fill our church with passion for the purposes of Jesus!

KEN ESAU is the National Faith and Life Director for CCMBC. He and Karen attend The Life Centre in Abbotsford, BC.

Book Review The Russian Daughter

BY SARAH KLASSEN 2022: CMU PRESS (260 PP.)

REVIEWED BY ELFRIEDA NEUFELD SCHROEDER

Sofia. Sofia is the adopted Russian daughter of an infertile Mennonite couple, who has kept her secret far too long: no questions asked; with the searching and questioning Boris who does not accept easy answers but “wonders where truth can be found — in Pastor Lange’s Bible? in his father’s words? in Fräulein Lange’s teaching? Can there be truth even in the impassioned words of uniformed officials who speak only Russian”?

Sofia stops, surprised. She has not spoken this much and with this much passion since leaving Stillenberg. Why is she suddenly overcome by a need to allow another human being a glimpse into her life? ... As often happens, one story prompts another: Sofia finds herself in the role of listener and Annegret gives her the untold portion of her story.

Grief plays a large role in this novel—the heartache of infertility, of not belonging, of not being understood, of losing a beloved child.

The novel ends mysteriously, leaving the reader with a question about Sofia, who, as is her pattern throughout the novel, does not fall in line with the family who adopted her but must do things her own way.

Two retired teachers sit in front of their audience at McNally Robinson Booksellers: Sarah Klassen about to read from her most recent novel, The Russian Daughter, and her former fellow teacher, Faith Johnson, interviewing her. Klassen is ninety years old and Johnson looks to be about the same age.

I wonder what has kept them so alert, active and healthy as they discuss Klassen’s book and field questions from the audience. Perhaps the power of “story” is a factor?

Klassen shares with her audience that the novel she wrote was inspired by the stories her mother, who grew up in Ukraine, told her when she was a teenager. At the time she was not particularly interested in what her mother shared but it stayed with her.

Storytelling, but also listening to the story, becomes cathartic for the protagonist of the novel,

Relationships is another strong theme: How do we treat “the other” among us? In Klassen’s book “the others” are the infertile, the handicapped, the servants, the people of different origins.

Although the novel takes place in Czarist Russia over one hundred years ago, Klassen assures her readers that human nature has not changed.

They will identify with the grief of the infertile couple, Isaak and Amalia; with the defiance of the difficult-to-love, adopted Russian girl, Sofia, and that of her classmate, Petya; with the frustration of Amalia’s sister who has too many children; with the enthusiasm and vibrancy of the twins (Boris and Hannah) taken into Amalia’s and Isaak’s family to relieve a sister with too many children; with the kindness of Pastor Lange who is never too busy to lend a listening ear; with the altruism of the Kleins, a couple who is willing to share their home,

Klassen’s novel not only provides the readers with a glimpse into Mennonite village life in Ukraine one hundred years ago but touches gently and with great empathy on themes of family life and society as relevant now as then.

ELFRIEDA NEUFELD SCHROEDER was born in Chortitza, Ukraine just before the German invasion of Russia and the consequent flight of her family to Poland and Germany. Her family spent five years in the Paraguayan Chaco before immigrating to Canada in 1952. She and her husband lived many years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaïre, ex-Belgian Congo), returning to Canada in 1984. They moved from Ontario to Manitoba in 2008. Elfrieda received her PhD in German Language and Literature in 2001. She is a translator, freelance writer, and grandmother of eight. You can read more of her writing in her blog