My first experience actually wasn't even when we started mission work. It was on the plane. I was reading this book that my dad had given to me to read. It's called The Green Cord Dream, by Alex Bryan. This specific chapter is about The Great Controversy, a term many of you may be familiar with. It pretty much refers to the much bigger conflict between God and Satan. This is the part that stuck out to me.
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| Munson just for kicks |
This is the passage that brought me to tears. Not just teary eyed. Sobbing, blinding tears. How true is it! The number one thing we long for as humans is to feel loved, to be loved and to belong. Satan has been trying to take this basic part of humanity away from us in anyway possible, by accusing God's commands as unjust and restrictive, using our sufferings as proof that either God is distant and doesn't care or that He doesn't exist at all. And finally, the one I personally have been struggling with recently, Satan points to my sinfulness and my flaws. He reminds me of how messed up I am and tells me that God can't love me, that His mercy has limits. Satan's basic, simplified, universal arguement is and always has been that God DOESN'T love me. And far too many times, I believe him.
When doubt of God's love for you presses upon your mind, Satan's "evidences" may seem possible, even likely. But do you know what's the one thing Satan will NEVER tell you as fact?
That Immanuel came to earth, to suffer as one of us, to die just so that He can have us.
No, Source of Life... gave up life just so that He could have us?
Wait, the Father and Spirit, gave up Their Son, literally a part of Them, the closest Being to Them, given up... to have me?
Go ahead. Tell me my God doesn't love me.