A few weeks ago, my team and I were out doing
door to door evangelism in a Kenyan town called Nkubu. One morning, we came to the house of a man
named Joseph. We soon learned that
Joseph believed himself to be a prophet and was the leader of a cult. In other words, Joseph was a false prophet,
and there was a lot of demonic stuff going on with him. To be honest, when I first realized that
there was a dark spiritual power influencing Joseph, I became excited. I was ready to go to war and to see my God
win. And so we talked/debated with
Joseph for awhile and prayed for him and left.
No big spiritual show.
But the next day, Joseph was still
on my mind and heart. At first, it was
more of a pride issue. I felt like I
could have done more, and I wanted to go back and do more and see something
happen. But as I spent time with God, he
began to change my heart. I was reminded
that my war was not “against flesh and blood, but against . . . the cosmic
powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) I began to see Joseph as a person, a person
who was trapped in a spiritual prison.
And my heart began to desire to see him set free. So several of my teammates and I decided to
go back to Joseph’s place and talk to him and pray for him some more. And so we did. And we talked, and we prayed, and when we
left, Joseph was still trapped.
(However, I do believe that God worked in some amazing ways in that
community through our prayers and time there.)
A couple days later, when we were
back in Kijabe, I was spending time with God outside of the church, and I saw a
drunken man being led away. And I began
to realize that he is someone who deserves God’s love. And 1 Corinthians 13 came to my mind.
If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging
cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as
to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver
up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing . . . Love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3, 7
I
am so ready and eager to do God’s will when it’s the cool, exciting spiritual
stuff. But how eager am I to do God’s
will when it’s the boring job of talking to and praying for the drunk, homeless
man? I am so ready and eager to do God’s
will when it involves intense spiritual warfare. But how eager am I to do God’s will when it’s
to simply show patience and love to the teammate that can annoy me?
Over these past several months, I’ve
learned so much about the importance of love.
God is love (1 John 4:8), and as cheesy as it may sound, love really is
the answer to everything. Jesus’ entire
ministry was revolved around love. Every
miracle that he did, every word that he spoke, it was all done out of love, up
to his obedient death on the cross for our sins. We have done a lot of good things here in Kenya. We’ve prayed for a lot of hopeless people,
spoken a lot of truth, and played with many children. But honestly, according to God’s Word, if we’re
not here in love, none of that matters.
In fact, Jesus says that that’s how the world will know that we are
Christians: love. So what does the world know about you?
A new commandment I
give to you, that you love one another:
just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.
John 13:35
P.S. I am now fully funded for the trip! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. However, I
also still have student loans (about $250 per month) and other personal expenses. If you would
like to donate towards this cause, you can make out a check to Robby Smith and mail it to Robby Smith
306 Saltlick Trace Peachtree City, GA 30269.
