John 15:1-17

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.