Insanity

I having been reading the book Insanity of God by Nik Ripken . It is a book that has really opened my eyes and made me shake my head about many things.  I can't decide if I am more angry about the things that are going on in our world  (outside of the US) or the fact that I had no idea about those things that are going on.  Nik tells of his journeys all over the world and his encounters with people in the persecuted church. One man talks of persecution being "as normal as the sun rise".

It confuses my "norm" that Christians are put in prison, beaten, starved, and even killed simply because they profess faith in Jesus.  I understand the stories of the bible and how Christians were martyred  for their faith, but we are talking about today. In this century.

My "norm" is waking up in the morning choosing to read my bible... or not, choosing to worship... or not, choosing to proclaim Jesus through my life... or not.  To be honest I sometimes don't think I take these choices very seriously.  I sometimes choose one way or the other depending on my mood, my children, the busyness of my day, or day of the week.
But what if living your faith determined if you lived or died?  What if choosing to bow you head before a meal, could land you in jail for years?  Would you do it?  What if leading a friend to Christ or even telling them about Christ could get you killed and possibly get them killed? Would you tell them?  What if "going to church" didn't mean putting on your pretty clothes and going into an auditorium to be entertained. But instead it actually meant sneaking through town, hiding from police, talking in code, only to arrive in a dark basement where you sit on the floor of a small abandoned basement to sing quietly and recite memorized scripture.  Would you want to invite people to meet "that Jesus"? 

I am trying very hard to wrap my mind around how we live and worship vs. how the rest of the world lives and worships.  I don't quite understand why we aren't talking more about this in churches in our country. Why were aren't striving desperately to live and love Jesus with the same passion that our persecuted brothers and sisters do?
I guess because at the end of the day it is much easier to pretend like we (American Christians) are the only ones worshiping. It is easier to simply play dress up with our rose colored glasses and ignore the fact that their are more Christians who were martyred in the 20th century than in all previous centuries combined 160,000 Christians were martyred in 2010 alone (that we know of).
What we can do:
*Cover them in prayers.  We must pray that God will give wisdom and peace as they fulfill the great commission in completely different ways than we do. And we must pray that in their persecution God will continue to be glorified.
 
What we can't do is ignore it all.  We can't continue to operate as if this isn't happening. We can't be quiet with our children. We must teach them so that they in turn can teach. We have got to take our blinders off and support and pray for Christians all over the world.



What may seem like insanity to us, might in turn only be a distorted view of reality.

Pray!

Jesus teaches that if one member suffers, all the members suffer ...1 Corinthians 12:26





~LL