What Is True Love?

In the early hours of this morning, The Lord kept me awake until I'd penned this. It's something that I've thinking about for quite a while and I just wrote it down last night.

That moment when you realize you truly love someone, you're willing to lay down your own happiness just so they can have it. Yes, love makes you do crazy things, but what if you're crazy enough to deny your own desires for the sake of the other person?

There's a type of love that is deeply rooted in selfish. Yes, you love the other person but deep inside you only care about yourself and your own happiness. You're more willing to sacrifice their happiness on the alter than you are. You desperately want that person to love you back, because you think you deserve to have their love. You try to force their hand, try to take their free will. This isn't true love, not matter what anyone may say.

True love is when you're willing to let the person you love go. When you're willing to sacrifice your own happiness so the other person can be free to love you in return, out of their own free will. At the same time you're giving them the freedom to choose to love you back. I know it hurts deeply when you discover that the person you love, actually loves someone else and is loved back. I've had first hand experience. But if you truly love that person, you'd quietly let them go, without making a fuss, without trying to win them over to your failed cause. True love is risking everything without the hope of getting anything back.

True love and free will should walk hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. You might wonder where I'm going with these two statements. In the beginning, when God created Adam and Eve, He loved them with the purest and truest of all loves. He wanted them to be happy and thus He gave them the freedom to choose, out of His passionate love, He gave them free will. When they chose to disobey, and thus face the consequences that their actions merited, they lost the real meaning of true love. When sin entered the world a twisted concept of love came in too. This twisted concept of love was rooted in selfishness, pride, sin (to name but a few). All you need to do is look around, you can still see it in the world today. That's why there's so many broken relationships, so many broken marriages, so many ruined families, when at least one of the parties were out to seek their own interest, their own ambition without worry about the cost it'll have for all involved. Selfishness destroys. Love builds.

It should be a two way deal. When both parties constantly give without worrying about getting anything back. When one side constantly gives and the other side doesn't, then something's wrong. The giver will feel drained, tired of giving and getting nothing back. Whilst the receiver (or should I say, the taker?) uses the love that they're receiving to manipulate the giver. They don't care about the other person, but they like the feeling, that they're needed. They'll try to manipulate the giver, to continue to give, but they'll never go through with their promises. This isn't always the case, but it could be. There is hope for both parties, but only if both see the effects of this dangerous relationship. It isn't just between two people in love, it could happen between parents and children, between friends, between husband and wife, between anyone.

The relationships we have with those around us should reflect the love God has for us. Many of us know the Bible's most famous verse, John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." This verse is just saturated with God's love for us. We failed Him. We disobeyed Him. You might point out that it was Adam and Eve who disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden, but how many times have we broken the rules? Too many times, but God still loves us. He'll always love us. I remember my father once saying something like this in a sermon "if we really knew how much God loves us, we'd be dead where we sit." God loves us so passionately, so violently, but because God's love is purer than anything found in this world, He'd never let us know the full extent of His love for us, well, not whilst we're on this earth, at least. God's love is true. He'll continue to love each and everyone of us, despite our rotten, miserably messed pasts. He chose each and every one of us, and gave us a golden invitation. That invitation was through the death of his son, the son He loved! What's more powerful than that? God, the God who created heaven and earth, gave up His perfect, innocent, blameless son to die for our sin, to die a sinner's death, in the most violent way possible (at that time), so that we may enter into the kingdom. He loved you and me so much He sent His only son to take away our sin and shame. If that isn't true love, then I don't know what is.

God wants a relationship with you, He knows you aren't perfect. He knows you make mistakes. But He loves you anyway. That's what true love is, it sees over your mistakes, even though it isn't blind. He'll keep waiting for you to turn to Him. "My son, my daughter," says God the Father, "See I'm standing by the door and I'm knocking." You can choose to let God into your heart, choose to leave the old behind, and let Him make you new. It won't happen overnight. It's a journey you'll be on for the rest of your life. It'll be a journey of learning the true meaning of love and when you find it, learning to incorporate into every aspect of your life. It's not easy. You'll fail, but I can guarantee you, that every time you fail, Jesus is right there next to you, helping you up, helping you learn from your mistakes.

You might be wondering how I came to this conclusion, about the differences between true, perfect love and selfish, worldly love. Yes, I gave my life to God when I was three, but it wasn't until recently when I got this revelation from God. I'd seen how true love can effect and change every relationship we ever have. I'd seen it in the lives of the people who'd attended the marriage courses my parents ran. I've seen both true love and selfish love in my own life. I once loved this guy, and I wanted him to love me back. I think I was willing to do anything to 'make' him love me back. It didn't work and I'm so grateful to God that it didn't. I wasn't ready for a relationship. I doubt I am ready for one now. In a way, I wonder I'll ever be ready for one, because of the ongoing work God's doing in my life. Over the last year and a half, God definitely opened my eyes to what love really is. It's being willing to let go, to risk heartbreak, to trust that God knows best. Love is knowing when to stay silent, and when to speak. When to fight and when to stand down. If I ever fall in love again, I won't do what I did before. God has placed some incredible people over me and I know I'll be able to trust that they'll be able to lead, guide and pray with me. He's given me incredibly wise parents, who's advice I trust. With true love comes wisdom. Wisdom in knowing who to trust, who to go for advice. Sometimes those people aren't who we think.

WildFire Takes Glasgow

I had an incredible time in Glasgow, Scotland. God really used me and the young people I was with. We arrived in Glasgow on July 17, after about 12 hours of travel (via The King's Lodge, Nuneaton, where we met up with some of the staff, who we travelled to Scotland with). That evening some Egyptian teens joined us, the next day we started.

Of the one and twenty people in WildFire, half were over the age of 18 and the other half were under the age of 18. We had lectures and worship in the mornings and outreaches in the afternoons.

I knew that God wanted me to join the evengelism team. Evengelism isn't something I'm overly brave with. I've always struggled stepping out and talking to people, especially about my faith. The lady who was leading the evengelism has a gifting in this and she really inspired me in this area. We also were working along side a Christian Theatre Company, called Saltmine. They did a number of dramas. Many of them are around my age and they really inspired me with their passion to reach out to people through the arts. I really learnt a lot from them.

We celebrated the opening games with one of the churches we were working with in Glasgow (we were also using their buildings to sleep and meet in). It was a lot of fun watch that with the Taboo Arts Team (from YWAM Urban Key, London), Saltmine and the members of both the WildFire team and the church. It was great to see all the nations of the commonwealth come in. I had to holler when Uganda came in. It was a proud moment to see my country at such an event. We'd seen about fifteen people come to Christ during the outreach earlier that day. These people were mostly teenagers and the people who spoke to them where teenagers themselves. That day I had felt God ask me to talk to certain people and I hadn't been totally ready to when they'd walked past, but God kept giving me a chance to do that and in the end I'd found the courage and stepped out. It was an incredible feeling being able to share the gospel. We'd made gospel bracelets. Each bracelet has two green beads (green is for creation), two brown beads (brown stands for sin and separation from God), two red beads (red is for love, God so loved us and wanted a relationship with us, he sent his son to die), two white beads (Jesus' washed our sins away and made us white as snow), two blue beads (blue stands for when Jeaus went to heaven he left his Holy Spirit so we won't be alone), and two yellow beads (yellow is for eternal life, when we die we'll go to heaven if we've chosen to follow Jesus). It see an amazing way to share share the gospel with people.

We also had an incredible time of worship, last Friday (if I remember correctly), outside Glasgow Cathedral, where the body of the city's patron saint, Mungo, is buried.

On Sunday afternoon and into the night, Amy, Ezequiel and I travelled back to London by bus. It took us eleven hours, because we traveled by bus from Glasgow to London and then had to get from the bus station to the house. After spending one night in the London base we headed back to Islington, where we are now. When we were here in the beginning of the month we spent a lot of time handing flyers out for a kids camp that the church we're working with is running, now we're taking part in staffing that camp. It's called Dover Soul. There's five of us from YWAM London. Three staff and two LMD (School of Leadership and Ministry Development) students. Its a lot of fun working with the kids from the local community. Dover Soul started yesterday and runs in the afternoons, finishing on Friday with a closing service on Sunday.

Photographs: Glasgow Cathedral, we had a worship time here; the Ugandan flag, I found this flying outside the Cathedral and had to snap a photo; and Saint Mundo's tomb, his remains we're moved from the crypt and have been laid elsewhere.

Until next time.

Islington: An Amazing Time

The last two weeks have just flown by. I've been meaning to post something about what we've been doing, since we arrived but we've been extremely busy since we arrived.

I'll try to bring you up to date with what we've found ourselves doing since we arrived in Islington ten days ago, but if I wrote about what we've been doing every day, then this would definately be the world's longest post. As I don't want bore you with a long post, here are some highlights of the last two weeks or so.

We arrived in Islington nine days ago and went straight into things. We've spent a lot of our time doing evangelism, which has been quite challenging for me because I find it quite s challenge going up to people to talk to them about God and what I believe in. Last Tuesday we were on the street talking to people. For some reason I'd put my South African hat (one of the hats I brought on outreach with me I picked up in South Africa and  looks like a cowboy hat but made in South Africa and is extremely hardy) on that morning and this brought some curious questions up. I had good conversations with two of the Save the Children volunteers who were also on the street, trying to raise awareness about the lack of  immunization in developing countries to stop preventable diseases (like measles and polio) from killing children.

Friday was another day that left a large impact on me. We spent the whole day evangelising is Soho, London's red light district. We were working with a church that operates out of a cafe. They set up a stall near the cafe and we helped handing out free tea and coffee. A lot of people said "no" or just ignored our invitation and thought that there was a catch involved. Though there were a few people who were interested in, and had something to drink. A number of the team were able to share their testimonies with people and were able to direct them to the cafe. Friday's ministry didn't stop there as in the evening we joined another church, who do open air evangelism outside St. Pancras and King's Cross Stations. We had a red box (which you can see in the picture) that had been brought by one of the men. How the evening ran was quite straightforward, someone who sing a song, to draw a bit of crowd and then there was a short testimony (or more than one very short testimony) before a five minute talk. The reason why I'm sharing this particular day with you is simple. More or less the entire DTS (Discipleship Training School) don't speak English as their first language, some even came to London not speaking any English at all (though there are a few who's english is almost fluent). Yet this didn't stop them from talking to people. It really impacted me deeply, that they really want to share the love of God with others. I'm really proud of them.

Tomorrow a new chapter of the outreach starts. The April DTS, along with Alina (one of my fellow leadership students) will be travelling to Germany to continue their outreach. I won't be joining them. One of the other LMD (School of Leadership and Ministry Development) students, Ezequiel (who's from Argentina) will be travelling to Scotland, this coming Thursday. We're going to be working with the July DTS until then. The King's Kids Wildfire team will be doing evangelism during the commonwealth games in Glasgow and the two of us, along with one of the staff, will be joining them. I'm really looking forwards to going to Scotland. I haven't been since I was eight, when my family travelled there on holiday (we were living in England at the time). I loved my time there. I'm really looking forwards to working alongside KKI (King's Kids International). We'll be travelling back to London at the end of the month. We'll probably be back in Islington to help out with Dover Soul, which is a kids program that is run annually by the church we've been working with this last week (we've been staying in their church building whilst we've been here).

I'll try to keep you posted. However, for more regular updates, do keep an eye on my blipfoto account. It where I post a photo every day with a caption about what we've been doing during the day.