"19. The Proof of Your Love--For King and Country"
Another video, and this one promised to be the most interesting visual yet. The setting was a very dark one--a gulag, complete with work brigades, filthy conditions, armed guards, and random cruelty.
If I sing but don't have love / I waste my breath with every song / I bring an empty voice, a hollow noise / If I speak with a silver tongue / Convince a crowd / But don't have love / I leave a bitter taste with every word I say
So let my life be the proof / The proof of Your love / Let my love look like You / And what You're made of / How You lived / How You died / Love is sacrifice / So let my life be the proof / The proof of Your love
If I give to a needy soul but don't have love / Then who is poor / It seems all the poverty is found in me
...
When it's all said and done / When we sing our final song / Only love remains / Only love remains
If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all of His mysteries and making everything as plain as day, and if I have faith to say to a mountain "Jump" and it jumps but I don't love, I am nothing. If I give all I own to the poor or even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So no matter what I say, no matter what I believe, no matter what I do, I'm bankrupt without love...
The video ended on a good note, with the prisoners and guards converting one by one and ultimately breaking out of the gulag and into the daylight, but she couldn't help wincing. The power he had tapped in "Don't Give In" would find its first application in a Christlike but grisly task: pushing his pride far enough under to keep a low profile and love sacrificially, with no expectation of immediate return and under the rod of oppression, overcoming evil with good until hearts could be won and the God who saw services rendered in secret rewarded him openly.
Where others "loved" with public flattery and grand gestures in the macro, he would love with private words and deeds in the micro, allowing his life to be the proof. What others thought of his approach was unimportant; the results would speak for themselves and time would vindicate him. The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory.