I loved this devotion. Yancey really pushed in a place that we don’t often think about.
He talks about the time he’s spent with Christians in places where there’s intense persecution. He’s spoken with house church leaders in China and pastors in Myanmar. These are countries where leaders spend time in prison, and oftentimes those sentences are lengthy. In anticipation of one visit, he was told, “expect that most of these men have been to prison for their faith”. So he asked if he should prepare a discussion on his book “Where is God When it Hurts” or something like that. He was told no, that’s not a problem for these men, they expect persecution. They’d rather have you speak about grace in a different way.
Wow, how big is that. They expect persecution. . . .
Can you imagine just expecting persecution to be part of your life. So much so, that you would rather a Christian author speak about God apart from simply how he helps us when we suffer. Yancey contrasts that at the beginning of the devotion by calling to attention the fact that in our own world, where we rarely face real persecution, and where we have incredible amounts of posessions and human comforts, we are so often focused on why God allows us to suffer.
What does that say?
In some ways it’s an indictment. We have become so comfortable that even small things can rock us. At the same time, I know that oftentimes people are troubled when they do face real trials- sickness, death, someone losing the faith, etc. What this tells me is that we can learn from our brothers and sisters across the world. While we certainly don’t desire suffering, this is part of the Christian walk. In fact, Jesus tells us to expect such things in our life. It will come if we really want to walk with him. And so we need to prepare ourselves for a sinful world that will include persecution and suffering. These are not signs of God’s absence, but actually in some ways are places where we can find him that much closer.
