It was recently suggested by my squad leaders to watch a
documentary called “Furious Love”. It
has wrecked me and raised more questions than comfort me.
Do I love furiously?
What does it mean to love furiously?
Is darkness really that real?
Is Satan really that powerful and God even more so?
Do I have authority to recognize and cast out demons? To
heal?
I knew coming into the Race that I was going to be
challenged to new things. I was going to be challenged to see new things, to
try new things, experience new things. Do I have the strength to do so? I mean
in America, who really casts out demons in the church? Who really invites them
in to be healed? Who walks up to someone on the street and says, “can I pray
for you?” or who walks up to someone who is sick, injured and says “Can I pray
for you?” It’s almost like in America, we don’t see them, they don’t exist.
We’d rather walk around diagnosing everybody and healing people with medicine
than even believe in the power of the devil or the power of God. Or we say
“It’s not my problem”. In my head I know darkness exists and Satan is powerful
but it’s almost like I don’t believe it.
I know Jesus said, “You will do even greater things than
what I have done” but can I? Do I really have that power in me? Is Jesus really
that strong in me to heal someone of sickness, to raise someone from the dead,
to cast out demons? Can my shadow heal people like Peter’s did? I never saw it
happen in America so can it happen here? Why does it only seem to happen
outside of America? And what does it mean to Love Furiously? Do I love
furiously? What does that look like, Mother Teresea?
A day after writing this blog God placed me in a situation
where I had to experience this war on darkness and furious love.
My team had finished dinner when a young girl came up to us
and sat down. First off, this is not normal behavior for the children to do.
Most look at us from a distance when we are eating. Then a group of children
followed her with a man leading them. The man approached the girl and grabbed
her hand saying, “She has a demon in her.” I was like WHAT!? She looked like a
normal girl to me. What happened next was like watching a movie and truly my
first experience with this type of darkness. Her body stiffened and her head
twisted sideways so she could not look at the man. He eventually got her out of
the chair and she began fighting him, trying to get away from him. As I sat and
watched, the children gathered around her to hold her down so that, as I
realized now, the demons would not allow her to hurt herself or anyone else. The
entire time the man was calling out the demon in both English and Swahili
telling the demon to leave, he was not welcome, covering the girl in the Holy
Spirit, the blood of Jesus. I watched as the demon took over her body and she
began moving very fluidly like a snake. Eventually the ordeal ended. She was
delivered and set free.
I was completely freaked out by this experience. I don’t
think that I, getting a head cold and having to stay behind a day of ministry
and watching the movie Furious Love was a coincidence at all. This is real!
There is a very serious war we are fighting between good and evil. Satan is
real! He is powerful! And he will do whatever necessary to keep someone from
loving God.
I watched these little children furiously love one of their
own. They did not leave her side. They prayed for her, sang for her, held her
down, got help when needed all to set her free. They looked darkness in the eye
and didn’t stutter, didn’t waiver, didn’t back down. They knew they had
authority in Christ to face darkness, to call it out by its name, to set
someone free. In that moment I realized those children had more faith in Christ
than I have had in my entire life.
I’m interested to see what else they can teach me in a place
that I thought was my “worst nightmare”. And I can only pray that God gives me
more faith, more strength, more courage to do what those children have done.
