God of Love
“Just as people were really encouraging each other to unite, and to unite as evangelists I really felt this placed on my heart to share.
When my brother was the age of 10, this awesome man of God prophecied over him that he would be such a man of God, a rock of faith, and a man with such a heart for the nations. He went to the newfrontiers summer event ‘Stoneleigh’ with my family, and as a family I do regard us as passionate Christians. But at the age of 14, he left church. There were only 2 people his age there, and he didn’t want to know either, and he said simply ‘I pray to God, and he doesn’t answer. Why should I believe he is there?’
After being told about this, I remembered a testimony the pastor took from one of the books he referred to in his preach. He said the one giving the testimony prayed for his friend every day for 15 years, praying that his friend would become a Christian. Eventually he met his friend again as an adult, and his friend confessed that he was a Christian, and was on fire for God. Because I was 9 years old, I was very inspirable, and I decided to do this as well. I decided that I would pray for my brother every night until I saw him come back to church and come back to God. Because of the prophecy that God had spoken over him at the age of 10, I had faith that he would find God, though often I challenged myself that perhaps the word was wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t God.
In my years of praying I found lots of things happen. Early on, because I was very young I did try to reason with him, giving reasons for going to church. Because he was 5 years older, of course he was smarter than me and he could reason back, and he reasoned that one didn’t have to go to church. He showed so much dissatisfaction with the church that I could not see him, in any way at all, coming back to Christian, being stood worshipping with the people I worshipped with. Some years later, after A levels, he took several gap years. His first one, to Ghana, he said to the family ‘I’m going to see what I can find in the churches out there.’ Naturally we got excited, we said ‘God I know you’re going to move in him,’ because he was going to a church in Ghana, because he was going to see these Christians with this faith, and because he wasn’t going to the particular church that we were going to, which he knew all too well. Naturally he came back from Ghana, and though he had a heart for mission, it was not related to church or Christianity in any way. The year after, he went to Brazil. Now my brother never sought after a church there, but what amazed me was seeing the heart that my brother had for the people there. As he spent time looking after children in a Brazilian favela, I remember my brother calling my parents, ardently asking them to adopt one of the children just to get this toddler out of that favela. He had a heart broken for the people there, and he took that broken heart and chose to study International Development at university so that he could make massive differences to the developing worlds, where people have to go through these every day. Though nothing happened on the church front, truly he had a heart for the nations. This brought such frustration and humour to my family, why on earth would God give him such a heart, but without anything to do with the church?!
In those years at university, as I continued praying, my brother found himself befriending some Christians who would later become his housemates. In moving out of our family, he moved into another house of Christians that he could talk with, and witness what they did in their lives as Christians. This wasn’t about seeing how ‘normal’ Christians actually are, this was about seeing the heart that Christians have, and the passion that they have for God in their lives. He also met a girl on his course who really steered him toward God. She stood firm as a witness to God, and he took such an interest in her heart for the nations, in what she was doing as a Christian, and how she coped and loved the church. He was inspired by her, and now I see him coming to know God, and coming to serve God, and in dealing with his issues of church and personal relationship with God, he’s become a rock of faith.
It was in this time that I took 11 years, every night, to pray for my brother. I wanted to share it to show that this amount of time meant a lot to me. It was a time of frustration, of times that hurt the family, of not knowing what exactly was going to happen. But you learn in such a long time that this truly is God’s timing, that God is a God of Love, and he showed his love more in allowing him to spend such a long time away from him than he ever would in answering my prayer straight away. In that time my family came together more, my brother learned the great importance of the church, and in his times abroad grew a faith and a heart for God even as, and because, he witnessed the hardships that others go through daily. I urge you to persevere, because it is not up to you to convince someone to be a Christian, otherwise all you would make is a Christian without substance. God works his love into someone, and he does it in his own time so he can show you his amazing love through that person. It’s the old story, we cannot understand God, but he wants us to know him. If you persevere in prayer, witness, and love for your friends and for your family, and you persevere in telling him to reveal to you his promises for that person, truly he will show you his character more, and you will know him more, and his love will flow through you more.
Be encouraged, for there is a God, and to call him the God of Love is a challenge to explore what the meaning of love is.”
