I’m sure you’ve heard the story. Medical aid workers from a Christian charity murdered one by one, each seeing their fate, having accepted the possibility long since, now knowing they would be leaving those they love as their turn at the muzzle of the gun arrived. The recent example in Afghanistan is only one of countless examples since Jesus promised that His burden is easy, his yoke light. And truly, it is today for those aid workers. But how… how is it easy and light for their wives, husbands, children? Don’t think I’m going to answer that one. I’m not even going to try.
But He said it. If He is God, what is the difficulty? In this life, our pain only represents birth pangs as we enter our real life in eternity. I don’t know, maybe that’s it. Maybe He really makes it easy and light in this world in ways we can’t understand without experiencing it. I read an account of a Romanian minister, imprisoned and tortured daily. Jesus would come to him physically and hold him after the torture sessions. Now, in freedom in the U.S, this man said in many ways he longs for those days of torture to relive those moments with Jesus. I don’t know. I just don’t. And I can’t fathom how His burden could be easy if I lost those I love. I only know He said it and I have to accept it by faith and walk on with a complete disregard for saving my own life - because that’s precisely how I will lose it. That I have to allow my wife and kids to do the same, knowing that we might face great loss and suffering in this world.
It is naive, unscriuptural, and leads only to disillusionment to pretend that such sacrifice and loss is not a part of many of our walks in this world. Today I’ll borrow from The Choir’s song, The Chicken (in some eastern societies chickens are believed to channel evil, thus the imagery). I have to agree with this song. That doesn’t mean that God’s promises are not true. It means we need an unshakable faith that God’s promises are true even when we suffer, and that we should not be surprised if and when we do suffer - nor should we doubt our ultimate deliverance. The Gospel MUST BE as true for those watching their chidlren die of starvation and dehydration tonight as it is for me. Knowing pain and suffering here must not shake our faith. Real faith believes in the face of suffering that is a natural part of a battleground.
I could tell you there is no troll in the valley,
No tricky ghoul behind the trees.
Yeah, I could tell you there is no molester in the alley,
To take a lead pipe to your knee.
But you won’t believe it, ‘cause it ain’t true.
You won’t believe it ‘cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue,
Trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.
I could assure you you could not be swallowed by the ground,
Since we’ve moved away from L.A.
And I could tell you no child of Jesus will be found,
Under rubble somewhere today.
But you won’t believe it ‘cause it ain’t true.
You won’t believe it ‘cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue,
Trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.
Trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.
Posted by Jim at 04:36 PM. Filed under: Jim's Existential Ramblings •
