Being Persistent and loving like Christ.

Today I got my first taste of what ministry is like.
I know I know, I'm 17 and I am not a certified minister/pastor/preacher/what-have-you, BUT as a daughter of Christ, gifted with the power of his spirit (like everyone who calls Jesus their savior) , I am a missionary and a warrior. Everyday I go out onto the mission field, a veritable battle field.

But today was the first time I really saw what it is like to try to convince an unbelieving world of the truth of who God is.

I have a friend. He's about the same age as me, in my classes, we hang out a lot around school and talk all the time over Instant Messenger. This morning, I wake up and turn on my computer and he starts Iming me. and out of nowhere he says he deleted me from his MySpace friends. When I asked him why, he responded that I was part of the system.( "PART OF THE SYSTEM MAAANN!!") and went on to clarify that by "System", he meant the church. No particular denomination, just the church.

After some coaxing, he explained he had some deep-seated grudges against the church due to a camp him parents sent him to as a kid as a punishment. When he got tired of the camp he tried to get kicked out, and when he finally succeeded the pastor of the camp went all fire-and-brimstone on him and his friends and told them they were corrupted souls that needed to be cleansed. Thus, he established that all Christians and God hate everyone who doesn't put up with the crap this church put him through.

I tried to explain that God isn't into torture.
No dice.

I tried explaining that God's love is a choice.
No dice.

I tried telling him that not all Christians are terrible people who want nothing more than to make you feel like crap.
STILL NOTHING.

By the end of this whole thing, I felt like blocking him and cutting him out entirely. But then, i was smacked over the head with this " enduring love" thing. In spite of everything we do, in spite of the way we close our ears to it, it still remains that Jesus loves us and died for us and he is still gonna knock at the door. He doesn't stop loving us, He doesn't stop trying to win us over. So why should I?