40-Day Fast

Last week, I wrote about the beginning of the 40-day-fast, and since that time, you've seen links to other bloggers who were participating. I hope you've clicked through to a few to offer your support and to learn about some great causes.

Well, today, it's my turn, and I'm about as geeked as you can be to not have food for a day. I have a fasting partner, Steven Russell. We're not necessarily fasting for the same cause, just on the same day. Please go visit him after you finish here.

Fasting for the Persecuted Church

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:10

Tomorrow, we Americans will celebrate our independence. Ours, like any other, came through a hard journey and a great fight, starting long before colonization. Regardless of the bad rap that the Puritans and Pilgrims get in our history books, the truth is that they came here for religious freedom. Some came because they held a different conviction from the ruling powers. Others came because they wanted to reform the current church by setting a good example of purity. Either way, they moved here to be free.

Then when our founding fathers drafted the Bill of Rights, the right to this freedom was placed #1 alongside the freedom of speech, peaceful assembly, and the press.

No matter where our country's religious fervor stands now, we are still blessed with freedom to practice as we like. But we have millions of brothers and sisters around the world that don't have this freedom. These Christians are facing imprisonment, torture, and death.

In fact, the most recent statistics estimate 175,000 yearly murders and assassinations.

Of course, this is happening in the obvious countries - China, Iraq, Ethiopia. But persecution and torture also takes place in parts of Mexico and other democratic countries like Belarus.

This is where my student Vadim came from. His family had immigrated to America in 2000, as religious refugees. His parents owned a tailor shop, and he was enrolled in my writing class, but confused about where he was headed in his life.

Over the next year, I got to watch him find direction, to grow in his faith, to burn with passion, and to take the oath to become an American citizen. It was awesome to witness all this. I was proud of him and proud to know him. I am forever grateful that God chose to bless his family with passage to America.

But people in his home country - and around the world - still suffer.

It's easy to sit over here on the opposite side of the world and take our freedom for granted. It's easy to ridicule our churches and complain about all the ways they're "doing church" wrong. It's easy to forget that the reason we have posers in our congregations is that we have freedom and our lives are not in jeopardy just because we showed up to a gathering.

It's easy to feel secluded, far away from the pain. It's easy to go all day, all week, all month without thinking about the torture, bondage, and death that our family across the ocean goes through.

So, today, I am breaking away from what's easy. I'm praying today for spiritual perseverance, for faithfulness, for joy for our persecuted and tortured. I'm praying specifically that these Christians living in captivity will find peace in knowing they are free in Christ.

And I'm praying for Americans, too, that as we celebrate our earthly freedom, that we would be burdened to unify with our global family.

Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. Hebrews 13:3

For more information and ways you can help encourage a persecuted Christian, visit http://www.persecution.com or http://www.prisoneralert.com.