dare i say it?
we - and we being christians of the western hemisphere, particularly those of america and self included - are spoiled brats.
i've oft thought this. i remember returning from the philippines at the age of 16. my parents and i had spent a year there serving as missionaries. i had great difficulty adjusting back to life here with so much after having not only seen a world with so little but having lived with so little. and been so happy.
and i must confess that at times i've prided myself on having difficulty adjusting back. it showed how unmaterialistic i was or had become. how culturally aware i was. how in tune i was to the rest of the world. and i have been because of that experience. it forever altered the way i saw my culture, my country, myself and my religion.
but i found myself this week once again aware just how spoiled we - and me - are.
this weekend was missions' weekend at my church complete with video about the czech republic, brief interview with a couple we are sending to the czech republic, video on poland and a pastor from poland who preached (which is a whole another post). we also did a live feed from a country in the middle east where we have missionaries.
and what they said made me ashamed to be not simply an american but a christian american. now let me say i love my country and am thankful that for whatever reason i was born "here" and not in a million other possible "theres". and my shame is not the kind of shame that wants to deny either of those facts - that i am a christian and that i am an american. but the kind of shame a parent feels when their child who they love, who has such potential and great qualities throws a grand stage fit in the grocery aisle complete with wailing, flinging of arms, and kicking that threatens to bring down the display of cheerios cereal boxes. for a moment every parent who experiences this looks for the nearest exit and contemplates if an escape is possible. you cringe that your child could behave this way and why must they of all places and times do it now. and that is how i felt sunday as i listened, we who have so much potential, so many resources, who have done so many great things - why must we throw our tantrum here and now in this world.
this missionary couple explained that God was moving. they knew He was moving because of the recent signs they had had in the country. signs such as the recent death of christians brutally murdered for their faith. and i was stuck. here in america we complain, we fear, we want to take up political arms and fight because we are being persecuted, our rights are being taken away, eroded ever so slowly. we hear the plea of so many well known christians that the end is coming and that we will soon be a country where God does not exist, that God is bringing His punishment and soon we won't even be able to say His name and this is all proof that God is no longer with us like He was before.
and while everything listed above may have truth, it's not the truth of it but our attitude that i question. we see our "persecution" and pending "persecution" as evidence that God is not moving, that God is withdrawing His grace and His love and His blessing, that the world is going to hell in an handbasket (whatever a handbasket is and why one goes to hell in one are a mystery to me) and yet these individuals and so many throughout the world see the persecution as a "sign" that God is moving, that God is coming not just to bring justice and righteousness and punish the evil doers but to draw men to Him. the families of these men, the couple went on, our blessing others by their forgiveness. their persecution is a sign that God is loving and has grace and blessing.
i think of the early church. it was persecution that caused the gospel to spread because the gospel bearers were forced to flee, to move, to go into the world and engage their world for their very survival. perhaps our "persecution" and our pending "persecution", the removal, the eroding of our rights further and further and the secularization of a nation are God - in His mercy, in His grace, in His love - sending us out to engage our world so that men and women will be drawn to Him.
maybe He's drawing us to Him. unfortunately, perhaps we can't see that because we are too busy throwing a tantrum in the grocery aisle.
