I have spent the better part of four months mulling on this. I have looked countless children of the Kingdom in the eyes and told them that they are loved by their Creator. It’s truth. It has never been hard to believe. I have spent these last four months knowing how easy it is for God to love His children because I have always experienced that love from my own parents.
And His love is perfect.
He is Love.
…
Flash back two weeks. Door-to-door evangelism.
Peter, our delightful brother and translator, takes Pei Yee, Kaity Grace, and I up a hill and stops outside the home. He says, “This is the home of a witchdoctor. People come from all over the town to see him. He does his work right here in the front yard. Let’s go see him and share Christ.”
…
So we walk in. To my surprise there are pictures and posters hung all over the wall of Jesus, filled with Scripture. The man–this witchdoctor–is Catholic. I feel like I have been punched and the wind has been knocked out of me.
…
Out of a door behind us comes this man. His eyes are red. He wears a traditional floor length blue get-up. He greets us. We introduce ourselves.
And as has become truly normal with these house visits, God gives me words to speak to this man. I tell him that I know he understands the power of light and darkness better than I do. I talk through all of Ephesians 5. He asks me where I learned all of this knowledge. I tell him it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, and that God wants him to know his worth.
His tone mocks me.
I want to scream at him–I feel my face flushing. I am boiling knowing that this man works directly against God’s purposes every day.
I had just met a bewitched woman the day before, and in the back of my mind I am wondering if this is the man who cast a spell on her.
…
As it becomes apparent that he has no intention of letting go of his occult practices in that moment, we ask to pray for him.
I don’t know if anything Pei Yee prayed changed him.
But it released something in me. It broke me into a new level of truly understanding the depth of God’s unconditional love.
…
Here is a man who has spent the better part of his life intentionally working against God’s will on earth, but God still loves him. God still wants his son to come home.
Here is a man who worships satan–who uses the authority of the devil to give himself power in this life, but God still loves him. God still has faith that his son will be in heaven worshiping for all of eternity.
…
My God is a God of love. He loves his son so much that he sent three white missionary girls across the globe to sit in his living room and tell him that he is loved. In that moment I truly understood that it does not matter what this man does in his entire life, this man was intentionally created for God. God had a purpose and a plan for good when he made his son.
…
That is the God I worship.
A God who pursues. No matter what. No matter how hard we fight against him. No matter how how much we try to outrun his voice. We cannot escape him. We cannot do anything in all of eternity that will make Him not love us.
…
On Tuesday I am going back to this witch doctor’s home. Not because I want to argue with him, not because I pridefully want to say something to my ego that he wounded. I am going back because if my God is pursuing him that relentlessly, then as his sister, I want him to know that His Papa will never, ever give up on him.
Ever.
My Papa still has a plan of redemption for this man. My Papa still sent his only Son to die for this man. And my Papa still wants Christ to be standing between Him and this man when he dies.
For we do not wrestle against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the
cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil
in the heavenly places.–Ephesians 6:12
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus oru Lord.–Romans 8:37-38
Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”–Psalm 139:7-12
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us. –1 John 3:16
We love because He first loved us. –1 John 4:19
