So, I've been thinking about struggles lately. And I've been rolling my eyes a bit at the struggles we American Christians go through.
I guess this was prompted mainly by a book I read recently called The Heavenly Man. It was very inspiring. This book was written by a Chinese brother who was really persecuted for his faith from the 1970's until 2001, when he finally escaped China and moved to Germany for refuge.
Today, I started studying Galatians because I need some reminders about freedom in Christ, but I actually began by reading Acts 13-14. This is the story of Paul's missionary journey to Galatia. Talk about struggles. Paul consistently faced opposition from those he was trying to reach. But it was never enough for them to just refuse to listen to him. They also wanted to poison others' views of his teaching, too.
So, he was driven out, stoned, persecuted. And Acts 13:52 tells us that he was "continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit."
This is nothing short of amazing.
I guess it never ceases to amaze me how caught up we can get in trivial things. We whine about having to cancel cable services because of hard financial times. We get in fights with friends because of politics. And we live in a peaceful place, where no one is hunting us down for preaching Christ. And if they, there are laws in place to punish them.
I don't know... what's my point? We all just need to grow up.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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What really amazes me about Paul in that passage is that after he was stoned and left for dead, he got up and went back into the city. I want to have that kind of love for people.
ReplyDeletei think about this quite often... We all know Christians who are so absorbed in the sad parts of their life that they refuse to see the hurting of others, beyond their own magnified (and often trivial) struggles. Then I hear from friends who are missionaries in Africa, or China...
ReplyDeleteI try to keep myself in check.