"You think darkness is your ally?"

One quote from Batman that I always felt has some spiritual ties was when Batman is fighting against Bane, and Batman tries to disorient Bane with smoke and darkness. Bane then says "Oh, you think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the dark. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man. By then, it was nothing to me but blinding!"

I feel this quote relates all too well to how we as humans begin this walk called life. We are born into sin (Romans 5:12) and are therefore children of darkness just like Bane. And, like Batman, we think that is our ally - we think it will satisfy, fulfill, and leave us content, but it betrays us time and time again. How many people that we come across on a daily basis are feeding on the darkness of sin hoping it will fill them like only the light of Christ's love can do?

This past week, an audible (football jargon for "change of plan") was called: JR and myself will not be leading a normal bible study; instead, we are to focus only on growing relationships with the people in his dorm (he is a Residential Advisor on campus). We are to spend this whole semester getting to know people and building deep, thriving relationships with them with the hope of starting a bible study in the spring comprised of entirely nonbelievers! Is there anything more exciting?! I think not! For the glory of God, I am to be a secret agent (more or less) in the dorms on Christ's behalf! I and he are to show them the love of God and pique their interest in our lives so that they can't help but be drawn to us and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to go to where the darkness dwells and shine brightly the love of Christ, driving back the darkness of unbelief.

Is this real life?

There is nothing this side of heaven that I would rather spend my life doing than living among the lost and loving them in such a way as to inspire curiosity as to why I am different from other people they've met and why I care so much about strangers! Praise God for giving me a calling that I am not worthy of! "For whom have I in heaven but you, Oh Lord? There is nothing on earth that I desire besides You, Father!" (Psalm 73:25) Pray, dear friends, that God would bind the enemy away from the campus, the dorm, the students as we seek to advance the kingdom in this way. The enemy will be "prowling like a roaring lion, seeking for those whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).

We must show the people we come across that darkness - that sin - is not their ally. That Christ is their Savior and friend, the Comforter and Redeemer. We must show them blinding light of Christ's love.

I leave you with this verse: Daniel 2:34-35
"While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth."