I was reminded of this verse by my roommate , Steve, last night after watching a video called "Furious Love". I won't go into the details of the video here but the title suited the content. As the video played, I began to ask myself many questions and wrote down a few answers. Three questions remain: what is love? What is "the darkness"? What am I expecting to see? These three questions seem to be the crux of what we know as "going into missions".
I was already familiar with the concept of God choosing us from the music I listened to, the bible I read and the ever famous "TULIP" which grew in my mind because of these sources. At this moment I can repeat John MacArthur's words about Paul - tht Paul never asked to be used by God but he was still fully responsible for his choices and actions concerning the call - and I add a friends words, "not a fan".
Yes I'm not a fan but I really had no choice in this. God pursued me. I ran. God pursued me more. I ran faster. So God hit me so hard that I had to stop running - no if's, and's or or's. This was a real blind side tackle.
I love being loved by God (who doesn't?) and sometimes I feel all warm and fuzzy and lazy because I don't really understand love. For a non-Christian to say "I want to know what love is. I want you to show me" is one thing but for me (and hopefully you) to say "I want to know what love is. I want you to show me" would hands down be my best and most favorite mistake of my entire life! It's not to say that this is something I regret doing but I laugh and call it a mistake because I never thought this would be the result.
Asa this passage was not so much about God choosing us but more about our relationship with Christ and his relationship with us - the thing we seem to have forgotten - I will just try to answer the three questions which remained from the video.
What is love? The short answer is "I don't know" I thought I knew what love was: simply dying on a cross for my sins right? Because no greater love has a man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13). But after watching "Furious Love" I realized that I still dont know exactly what love is, but dying on the cross for my sins is a beautiful example.
The reason I don't understand love is that I don't understand God. God IS love, 1 John 4:8 says, so understanding love becomes even more complex. It took me 7 months to scratch the surface of a supreme being in a poem, 7 years to make it to the surface of who God is, and even after thousands of years, hundreds of authors and 66 books, we still don't get it entirely. Maybe you do, but I don't. My mind is too limited to hold anything beyond what God has given me and my heart can't beat fast enough to run with him. Maybe if I was omnipotent, and omniscient I would understand God. Maybe only God knows who he is (Matt 11:27).
It's not so much a matter of understanding love but of trusting him. We are the light (Matthew 5:14) and co-heirs with the Light (Romans 8:17). Love and light conquered the darkness. (I'd like to interject here with my revelation: there's a lot I don't know, not because I chose to be dumb but I was made this way - limited).
So what's the darkness? I thought I knew what the darkness was, ie. Demons, chanting, red eyes, deep voices and all that stuff as seen on television, but after honest examination I realized that it is darker still. In "Furious Love" the filmorgrapher went to a wit he's convention in Salem to "pick a fight". I don't blame him because I would do the same. But what struck me most was when the witch took off his hood in respect for God when the pastor was praying for him and his friends, who accepted Jesus. What struck me was when the New Age man, Sam, was asked as he was bowing, "do you want to accept Christ?" and he replied, "I just did". This brought new light to th darkness.
I always thought that darkness was demons jumping on a place or person - the gruesome, exciting stuff all Christians think about when they hear the term "spiritual warfare" but what if a misunderstanding of darkness was part of the spiritual warfare tactics Satan used? I mean if we didn't understand what the darkness (or love) was about then how could we recognize it, or not be disappointed when we went to Africa and never screamed 70 demons out of a violent, tantrum throwing 12 year old foaming at the mouth, having them run with their spiritual tails between their spiritual legs? It's only logical. So simply put, the darkness is the absence of love, and love is God.
So this brings me to my last question, "what am I looking for?". Honestly, when I first started, I wanted to get shot (at). This made better stories and I don't like spooky stuff. So I figured I could go to the Congo, stand on a box and scream "Jesus is god! Jesus is god!" and human error would stop the bullets from going through my heart, brain, stomach or artery in my thigh. Then I'd write awesome, exciting novels which inspire others, who like spooky, to cast out demons, heal the sick, or raise a dead man. Simple plan.
I think pur expectations and understanding drive our actions more than anything. As was said in the documentary, the moment we stop loving people and seeing people in love is the moment we get trapped by the enemy. Ok, I don't know what to expect anymore besides love and darkness - the two things I don't seem to understand.
So I'm at a place where I expect nothing but someone I can't understand and opposition I can't comprehend, yet I want to go. Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm right. But in any case I can't escape the darkness and I tried to escape love but you know how that goes. I didn't choose God, he choose me.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
At the airport to Trinidad
I know I said that this blog was closed, but after half an hour of trying to figure out the password for my travel blog and then ten minutes of trying to figure out why I couldn't type anything in it, I figured that it was revolting so I decided to come here - old faithful never fails and I shall only say good things about this one.
It seems that airports and planes always make an interesting topic to share. I can't remember having a boring time flying. Maybe I did but it was too boring to remember. There was the time when y friend's luggage got left unattended and almost destroyed in Jamaica, only to be saved by an observant camper. Then there was the time these same observant campers and I almost got left in Barbados for liming - it seems a lot can change in a week. There was the time when I went to Trinidad and the guy couldn't find his passport and if it weren't for responsible adults he would have been left in Trinidad. And i don't have to mention the time when i got drilled at immigration because i looked too young to be flying alone. Then there'd was this.
The day started out fair to partly cloudy with a few brief scattered showers which turned to a thunderstorm by sunrise. I had gotten the day off from work and I spent most of the day sleeping since I had already packed the night before. I slept and lined until 2:30pm when I went to bathe and leave. I figured that I should check in online before anything so I went to the airline's site to check in. There was a link saying "check in now" and it lead me to a page which started "If you have checked in online please arrive with your boarding pass at least 45 minutes before departure." and it made mention of other stuff like baggage and assistance, etc. So I read it over and searched frantically for it. I ran in circles screaming frantically until 3:30. Daddy told me to calm down and that we will just check in there. Now I'm figuring that RedJet is a bus and buses in Barbados are ram off when they're ready. So I was expecting a long line of people and maybe even getting left at the airport. However, there was no calmness when dad realized that my sisters weren't ready to leave and it was almost 4!
Long story short, there was no line and by the time mom parked I had checked in and stuff. I went to use the ATM to take off some money for traveling but my parents said that I should just go and do it inside. We said our goodbyes and I went inside. Now please don't fault me for this but wouldn't you be scared if the security officer who searches you kept staring at you? And I don't mean "Oh she's so sexy" stare, I mean a "Processing...analyzing face and mannerisms...database searching" stare. I've always had bad run in with security even though I'm such a decent man. So when the officer came up to me and said that I looked familiar, a sigh of relief didn't come but more like a denial of identity.and then he didn't know me from church, which just made it worse.
I think I covered the entire departure lounge that day. First I couldn't find the bank and then when I found it I couldn't find the ATM. I finally found the ATM - which was by the security I tried to run from - and put my card in. "Transaction denied at your request." I thought I was going off whet I saw that so I put it in and right after I entered my pin the screen read "transaction denied at your request". Now this makes life worse! What's the point of working and saving if you can't access the money? Now I was about to cry. This is why you should honour your father and mother: I called my parents and after explaining the situation they comforted me by sending me money.
I met my friend Megan who was traveling with me, inside and as we waited I wondered where the plane was. But this all made sense now. The reason RedJet can fly for so low a cost is because they don't use planes! Well duh! Planes cost too much money so when we got into the "bus" 2 hours later we were in Trinidad!
The flying experience was not bad. It was very basic but it was smooth flying. Unfortunately, if one wasn't Caribbean one could not understand what the captain was saying. His accent was weird and his voice was slurred and it sounded like one long word being said with his tongue not moving. But fortunately I knew what to do in case of emergency.
And so we landed five minutes early and the half full plane was empty in no time. Now pilots really do have a speeding problem. I've never been on a flight that took longer than the estimated time, but I guess that's why it's flying. Immigration was another part of this story. I got in the line for CARICOM nationals and after about 20 minutes and meeting a girl from my math class I got to the desk.
"What kind of conference is this you're going to?", the lady asked. I explained it, along with the organization.
"So do you have any documentation?"
"Oh shoot!"…no!
iPads are pretty cool devices but what use can they be if you can't use them to search through three months of mail and hope that you didn't delete the e-mail with everything you needed to clear immigration? I learnt a valuable lesson that day - there's packing and there's getting ready for a trip. Fortunately, I had written down the number to the place where I was staying on a piece of paper which I stuck in my passport and by the grace of God I was saved from my insanity and irresponsibility and I cleared immigration. If any factor had changed I would have been in jail right now.
I have the worst phone in the world. Firstly, it has no back so the battery falls out ever so often and then I miss calls. Secondly the battery lasts two days and just cuts out. Thirdly, the phone only seems to pick up bajan networks! Gah! I would have bought a phone when I found out that but I had no money! So here I was in Trinidad with no money and no phone and since Megan was not a CARICOM national I left her in the line at immigration!oh the pain that went through my heart when I realized that I couldn't get a baked pork sub from subway!
Anyways I stood outside waiting for my ride. I didn't know who the person was because the name dad gave me is not who I know her as and the image I had in my head was not who came up to me and asked "Marcus? You don't recognize me?". Plus she lost weight since I last saw her and it was night time. People always look different at night, eg Princess Fiona. Megan finally came out laughing at me because I kept looking at her for salvation after she said I should have printed the info for the conference. We parted ways after that.
I did manage to salvage something from the trip when we went for pizza and I drank passion fruit mixed with grapefruit juice. For the first time I ate a lot of sweet peppers but everyone knew that I didn't like sweet peppers because I was the only one trying to pick them out without anyone noticing. But thankfully they were cut small enough to swallow whole with a little drink.
So I'm here safe and sound, sitting next to a treadmill that may be used by me one day, but not today. Apparently I look like my brother so much that people recognize it in the dark! But I'll take his advise and just "smile and wave" until it is over and who knows, maybe someone here will recognize me.
It seems that airports and planes always make an interesting topic to share. I can't remember having a boring time flying. Maybe I did but it was too boring to remember. There was the time when y friend's luggage got left unattended and almost destroyed in Jamaica, only to be saved by an observant camper. Then there was the time these same observant campers and I almost got left in Barbados for liming - it seems a lot can change in a week. There was the time when I went to Trinidad and the guy couldn't find his passport and if it weren't for responsible adults he would have been left in Trinidad. And i don't have to mention the time when i got drilled at immigration because i looked too young to be flying alone. Then there'd was this.
The day started out fair to partly cloudy with a few brief scattered showers which turned to a thunderstorm by sunrise. I had gotten the day off from work and I spent most of the day sleeping since I had already packed the night before. I slept and lined until 2:30pm when I went to bathe and leave. I figured that I should check in online before anything so I went to the airline's site to check in. There was a link saying "check in now" and it lead me to a page which started "If you have checked in online please arrive with your boarding pass at least 45 minutes before departure." and it made mention of other stuff like baggage and assistance, etc. So I read it over and searched frantically for it. I ran in circles screaming frantically until 3:30. Daddy told me to calm down and that we will just check in there. Now I'm figuring that RedJet is a bus and buses in Barbados are ram off when they're ready. So I was expecting a long line of people and maybe even getting left at the airport. However, there was no calmness when dad realized that my sisters weren't ready to leave and it was almost 4!
Long story short, there was no line and by the time mom parked I had checked in and stuff. I went to use the ATM to take off some money for traveling but my parents said that I should just go and do it inside. We said our goodbyes and I went inside. Now please don't fault me for this but wouldn't you be scared if the security officer who searches you kept staring at you? And I don't mean "Oh she's so sexy" stare, I mean a "Processing...analyzing face and mannerisms...database searching" stare. I've always had bad run in with security even though I'm such a decent man. So when the officer came up to me and said that I looked familiar, a sigh of relief didn't come but more like a denial of identity.and then he didn't know me from church, which just made it worse.
I think I covered the entire departure lounge that day. First I couldn't find the bank and then when I found it I couldn't find the ATM. I finally found the ATM - which was by the security I tried to run from - and put my card in. "Transaction denied at your request." I thought I was going off whet I saw that so I put it in and right after I entered my pin the screen read "transaction denied at your request". Now this makes life worse! What's the point of working and saving if you can't access the money? Now I was about to cry. This is why you should honour your father and mother: I called my parents and after explaining the situation they comforted me by sending me money.
I met my friend Megan who was traveling with me, inside and as we waited I wondered where the plane was. But this all made sense now. The reason RedJet can fly for so low a cost is because they don't use planes! Well duh! Planes cost too much money so when we got into the "bus" 2 hours later we were in Trinidad!
The flying experience was not bad. It was very basic but it was smooth flying. Unfortunately, if one wasn't Caribbean one could not understand what the captain was saying. His accent was weird and his voice was slurred and it sounded like one long word being said with his tongue not moving. But fortunately I knew what to do in case of emergency.
And so we landed five minutes early and the half full plane was empty in no time. Now pilots really do have a speeding problem. I've never been on a flight that took longer than the estimated time, but I guess that's why it's flying. Immigration was another part of this story. I got in the line for CARICOM nationals and after about 20 minutes and meeting a girl from my math class I got to the desk.
"What kind of conference is this you're going to?", the lady asked. I explained it, along with the organization.
"So do you have any documentation?"
"Oh shoot!"…no!
iPads are pretty cool devices but what use can they be if you can't use them to search through three months of mail and hope that you didn't delete the e-mail with everything you needed to clear immigration? I learnt a valuable lesson that day - there's packing and there's getting ready for a trip. Fortunately, I had written down the number to the place where I was staying on a piece of paper which I stuck in my passport and by the grace of God I was saved from my insanity and irresponsibility and I cleared immigration. If any factor had changed I would have been in jail right now.
I have the worst phone in the world. Firstly, it has no back so the battery falls out ever so often and then I miss calls. Secondly the battery lasts two days and just cuts out. Thirdly, the phone only seems to pick up bajan networks! Gah! I would have bought a phone when I found out that but I had no money! So here I was in Trinidad with no money and no phone and since Megan was not a CARICOM national I left her in the line at immigration!oh the pain that went through my heart when I realized that I couldn't get a baked pork sub from subway!
Anyways I stood outside waiting for my ride. I didn't know who the person was because the name dad gave me is not who I know her as and the image I had in my head was not who came up to me and asked "Marcus? You don't recognize me?". Plus she lost weight since I last saw her and it was night time. People always look different at night, eg Princess Fiona. Megan finally came out laughing at me because I kept looking at her for salvation after she said I should have printed the info for the conference. We parted ways after that.
I did manage to salvage something from the trip when we went for pizza and I drank passion fruit mixed with grapefruit juice. For the first time I ate a lot of sweet peppers but everyone knew that I didn't like sweet peppers because I was the only one trying to pick them out without anyone noticing. But thankfully they were cut small enough to swallow whole with a little drink.
So I'm here safe and sound, sitting next to a treadmill that may be used by me one day, but not today. Apparently I look like my brother so much that people recognize it in the dark! But I'll take his advise and just "smile and wave" until it is over and who knows, maybe someone here will recognize me.
Saturday, September 03, 2011
You Can't Force Belief
Recently I've been asked to perform a piece I wrote on sexual purity and it posed the greatest challenge I've been up against. At the rehearsal, after I knew I had flopped, I walked up to the director and asked for her comments on the piece. Nothing she said was new but somehow it still cut like a fresh wound. She called the piece "shapeless"; it had no movement and it was just like I was reading it. I sat and cried inside and listened closely as she continued to pour out tips on how to give life to the poem. It felt like producing crap, knowing it's crap and still hoping that it's accepted...but it wasn't. I walked away with my tail between my legs but not because I was reprimanded for a poorly done job but because someone else noticed. As I turned to leave I asked her what I could do to give it life, and she smiled at me and said, "believe in it."
Why was it so hard to believe in this piece? I knew the importance of sexual purity and I could produce statistics on HIV/AIDS, STI's, heart breaks, and sex related human trafficking but I also knew the extreme position I took. It's one thing to go into a church and cry down christians saying "God owns you" but to stand in the midst of people, some not caring about God, and say "God owns you" takes a conviction I do not own. I knew the hard line I was taking and how fickle the arts is. In a world where "everyone is having sex" people are hostile to messages about purity and antagonistic against message of the gospel, yet they love art and though they wouldn't agree, they may listen simply because it is art.
So my rehearsals became fatal attempts to fly because in the back of my mind I knew what I was saying but in the front I was sifting my heart to keep out the offensive part and it just kept flopping. Then I prayed and asked God to give me the conviction to speak with authority but I still had my reservations about the issue so I just kept flopping. It was like attaching an anchor to a rocket and expecting to reach the moon. I started out hot and on fire but then it got to a point where my mind blocked my heart and my tongue froze up but since I was half way there I had to let the words out so they just came out motionless. Even saying it to myself caused issues because I was fully aware of what I was doing and for all these years I've either not taken a stand or took one oblivious to the consequences.
But after some prayer and quiet time God spoke to me and said, "you cannot force belief". In my mind, and in my soul I felt so strongly about this message but in my heart I wanted just one more peep, one glance, one change at wrong before I started to write again. Sin is a dangerous thing. I can heap up all the self-confidence I have but my swag's too tight to let loose this fire in my soul; my heart was too dirty to come clean with myself and say "I've done wrong in God's eyes many times and I don't know where this message came from but it's here and it's not to keep." I was too proud to admit my own impurities and short falls, and not humble enough to ask for help. I thought it was all about me and I lost focus on the one who kept me pure, who cleaned me when I was impure who forgave me over and over again, and who put these words in my mouth because all of my poems are cheesy, and self-centred and commercial and lack depth and substance; and it's only by grace that I am saved from it.
Belief is a strange thing. When Jesus was on earth a woman touched his robe and was healed because she believed and yet the Pharisees saw him raise a man who was dead for four days and tried to kill him. No amount of logic can cause belief. I was at my youth group and we were discussing the bible and the journey it went through from the time the scrolls were written to what we have now and its history is plagued with controversies and reasons not to accept it as God's word written as it was originally. And at the end of it I said that belief in God's word is nothing that we can do in our own strength. It takes divine faith to believe it because if we honestly examine history we would probably come to the conclusion that what we have was altered and therefore not to be believed in. But that's what faith is about. When our faith is gone, our life is gone as christians.
We can't muster up the assent that what is told in churches about Jesus (especially) is right. Neither can I muster up any passion or conviction to back up my poem - especially when my legs aren't strong enough to help me walk away from sin. I have turned my mind towards acceptance of my poem but only God can change my heart to comply. And it's the faith that God has given me which can make me fly. I can't force belief because it comes out forced. When I performed Toy Soldiers there was nothing that could convince me that I was wrong or out of place and it came out like that. But now, I have to rely on God like this is the last thing I say because if I don't, it very well might be.
Why was it so hard to believe in this piece? I knew the importance of sexual purity and I could produce statistics on HIV/AIDS, STI's, heart breaks, and sex related human trafficking but I also knew the extreme position I took. It's one thing to go into a church and cry down christians saying "God owns you" but to stand in the midst of people, some not caring about God, and say "God owns you" takes a conviction I do not own. I knew the hard line I was taking and how fickle the arts is. In a world where "everyone is having sex" people are hostile to messages about purity and antagonistic against message of the gospel, yet they love art and though they wouldn't agree, they may listen simply because it is art.
So my rehearsals became fatal attempts to fly because in the back of my mind I knew what I was saying but in the front I was sifting my heart to keep out the offensive part and it just kept flopping. Then I prayed and asked God to give me the conviction to speak with authority but I still had my reservations about the issue so I just kept flopping. It was like attaching an anchor to a rocket and expecting to reach the moon. I started out hot and on fire but then it got to a point where my mind blocked my heart and my tongue froze up but since I was half way there I had to let the words out so they just came out motionless. Even saying it to myself caused issues because I was fully aware of what I was doing and for all these years I've either not taken a stand or took one oblivious to the consequences.
But after some prayer and quiet time God spoke to me and said, "you cannot force belief". In my mind, and in my soul I felt so strongly about this message but in my heart I wanted just one more peep, one glance, one change at wrong before I started to write again. Sin is a dangerous thing. I can heap up all the self-confidence I have but my swag's too tight to let loose this fire in my soul; my heart was too dirty to come clean with myself and say "I've done wrong in God's eyes many times and I don't know where this message came from but it's here and it's not to keep." I was too proud to admit my own impurities and short falls, and not humble enough to ask for help. I thought it was all about me and I lost focus on the one who kept me pure, who cleaned me when I was impure who forgave me over and over again, and who put these words in my mouth because all of my poems are cheesy, and self-centred and commercial and lack depth and substance; and it's only by grace that I am saved from it.
Belief is a strange thing. When Jesus was on earth a woman touched his robe and was healed because she believed and yet the Pharisees saw him raise a man who was dead for four days and tried to kill him. No amount of logic can cause belief. I was at my youth group and we were discussing the bible and the journey it went through from the time the scrolls were written to what we have now and its history is plagued with controversies and reasons not to accept it as God's word written as it was originally. And at the end of it I said that belief in God's word is nothing that we can do in our own strength. It takes divine faith to believe it because if we honestly examine history we would probably come to the conclusion that what we have was altered and therefore not to be believed in. But that's what faith is about. When our faith is gone, our life is gone as christians.
We can't muster up the assent that what is told in churches about Jesus (especially) is right. Neither can I muster up any passion or conviction to back up my poem - especially when my legs aren't strong enough to help me walk away from sin. I have turned my mind towards acceptance of my poem but only God can change my heart to comply. And it's the faith that God has given me which can make me fly. I can't force belief because it comes out forced. When I performed Toy Soldiers there was nothing that could convince me that I was wrong or out of place and it came out like that. But now, I have to rely on God like this is the last thing I say because if I don't, it very well might be.
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