Day: 29

I’ve been fascinated by people who have endured long stretches of intense suffering since I was a young adult. One of the books on all my “all-time favorites” list is “Gulag Archipelago,” a first-person account of imprisonment in the Soviet prison camps under Stalin. Another was “A Cambodian Odyssey,” a firsthand account of suffering under Pol Pot and the Communists that took over Cambodia. They murdered one to two million Cambodians and turned the whole country into a prison camp.

I could go on, but you get the picture. I had this fascination long before I was a Christian before God called me to minister to His suffering church with ICC.

Looking back, this is a great curiosity to me. I can clearly see God’s shaping and leading me even then, as an unbeliever. But if you asked me back then why I was drawn to these stories at the time, I probably couldn’t have given you a definitive answer. I think I would have tried to articulate my fascination with human development under extreme conditions.

When humans are placed under enormous pressure over long periods, they will either be crushed or transformed – there is no in between. For those who are changed, if they have the Holy Spirit, their growth becomes genuinely stunning.

I’ve read many accounts of these types of prisoners, and I’ve had the incredible blessing to have met some of them in person. They deeply affected me. Here are just a few accounts of Chinese believers that describe their own suffering.

Sister D.

Sister D. received a calling from the Lord to work in His vineyard. She planted over forty churches in China and brought thousands of people to Christ. During the Cultural Revolution and the years following, she was severely persecuted.

She spent three-and-a-half years in prison. She endured physical torture and mental abuse, but never gave up on the calling she had received. After her release, she went back to work in the Lord’s vineyard.

She said, “The solitary prison cell was dark and made of concrete. It was in the middle of freezing winter with no heat anywhere close to the prison. Food was scarce, and my prayer and fasting reduced my body to skin and bones. No one knew about my whereabouts. I constantly worried about my husband and children.”

“In a short period, the church grew to 300-400 believers, and the police began imprisoning more leaders and believers. They warned us not to hold religious meetings, but we continued. The Lord guided us to meet in smaller groups. But within a year, these small groups began to grow and turned into large gatherings. They arrested more of our leaders, but the house churches kept growing and multiplying!”

Ruth

Ruth, a young mother, was imprisoned in China for a number of years for publishing Christian materials. You can imagine what it meant to leave her child behind. But, she saw her sentence as an assignment from the Father and wanted to use her time in prison for God. A fellow inmate said she only saw her troubled three times and described her as constantly beaming with joy!

Beaming with joy in the midst of a trial that breaks most people opened the eyes and hearts of Ruth’s fellow prisoners. She composed over 30 Christian songs during her imprisonment, which she taught to her fellow prisoners.

Her husband, who was caring for their son alone, said, “Compared to what Christians suffered throughout history, we consider this almost nothing. If you want to work for God, this is quite reasonable.”

The War

If you pull back for a macro view of our faith, the suffering of the persecuted makes perfect sense. Why? Because we are soldiers in the most significant and longest-running war ever fought. You have chosen a side. You have been given a uniform, a weapon, and a mission. That mission is similar to D-Day in World War II. We have been told to land in enemy territory and to reclaim what Satan has taken.

The opposition is dug in, heavily armed, and has excellent aim. Because of the side you’ve chosen and the mission you have been given, you will be opposed. That means you will be shot at, wounded, and perhaps even killed for the mission. Your opposition will also be more intense if you are bringing many to Christ or have been given a clear mission from God.  Don’t take it personally!

A Greater Suffering

It’s easy to take it personally when you are suffering, isn’t it? I’ve come to see, however, that pain is absolutely necessary to our growth as Christians. My thoughts about the need for pain have mainly come from observing the persecuted under extreme duress, endured with the Holy Spirit.

At some point along my journey with the persecuted, I became aware of the writing of Samuel Rutherford. If you want to understand more about the role of suffering in the life of the Christian, you need to read Rutherford.

He endured suffering throughout his life. From the loss of his young children and wife to continual persecution from religious authorities, it never seemed to stop for him. He was struck down by these crosses that came into his life, but he always got back on his feet and went deeper and deeper with the Lord. Take a look at this small portion of his writing on pain and struggle:

“If your Lord calls you to suffer, do not be dismayed, for He will provide a deeper portion of Christ in your suffering. The softest pillow will be placed under your head though you must set your bare feet among thorns.

The greatest temptation out of hell is to live without trials. A pool of standing water will turn stagnant. Faith grows more with the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withers without adversity. You cannot sneak quietly into heaven without a cross.

Crosses form us into His image. They cut away the pieces of our corruption. Lord cut, carve, wound; Lord do anything to perfect Your image in us and make us fit for glory!

We need winnowing before we enter the kingdom of God. O what I owe to the file, hammer, and furnace!”

The Good Old Days

Remember Francis Chan’s story of the  Koreans who were captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2007? I told you about them in the third devotion.

They were separated into small groups and frequently moved around as they waited (for months) for their execution. Two believers were executed before the others were finally released. Months after their release, they regathered in safety when they were back in Korea.

I want you to guess what dominated their conversation? Was it their PTSD? Their inability to sleep? Their joy that they were rescued?

Not even close. They spoke of how they longed for the time when they were imprisoned, about to be murdered.

Why?

Because their fellowship with each other and with the Lord was like nothing they had ever encountered before. They had gone to a place they could never reach without the soul-crushing pain and struggle of persecution.

We Must Have Pain

Culture and our human sin nature tell us that the highest level of life is to avoid pain at all cost. To live our days, coddled and entertained, while lying in a bed of ease, dressed in silken sheets.

But this life will slowly put your faith to sleep.  To quote Rutherford again,

“You will not be carried to Heaven lying at ease upon a feather bed.”

You must have pain in your life.

We must change our viewpoint on suffering to understand that oftentimes our trials are an invitation to go deep with our Lord.

I think the persecuted teach us to stop struggling and to stop trying to flee our suffering. Instead, we must embrace it and (this totally counter-intuitive), to thank Him for our trials.

Begin by thanking Him by sheer willpower, until your spirit agrees with your words. A.W. Tozer spoke eloquently to this point:

“For the nail knows the hammer only as an opponent, a brutal, merciless enemy who lives to pound it into submission, to beat it down out of sight and clinch it into place. The nail forgets that both it and the hammer are servants of the same workman. Let the nail but remember that the hammer is held by the workman and all resentment toward it will disappear.” – A.W Tozer, Praise God for the Furnace

When you reach this point, when you can embrace the hammer’s blow and trust the One wielding it, then you will be close to other side of the desert you have to cross.

Know that soon your prison door will spring open.