My brokenness (I must confess)
Darkens all my thoughts, and hides your hands.
But questions fade before your face,
And I’m content that I may never understand.
[All that I have are questions;
So much is veiled in mystery.
But you are yourself the answer—
The only answer that I need.]
Of what I spoke I did not know—
Of things too wonderful and high for me.
In ignorance I gave offense;
I had heard of you but now my eyes have seen.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
7.13.10
"J, why can't I shake this?"
"Hey...remember? I've already bought you're freedom. It's there. But you have to want."
"Oh yeah. Yeah, that's right...I think I want it...Ok, yeah, I want it."
"It's yours. It always has been. I love you."
"Hey...remember? I've already bought you're freedom. It's there. But you have to want."
"Oh yeah. Yeah, that's right...I think I want it...Ok, yeah, I want it."
"It's yours. It always has been. I love you."
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Disclaimer for previous post.
I think we're very much responsible for calling people to repentance. But I think how that happens should look different with people that follow Jesus than it does with people that don't.
I think most of the implications for the post are for the context of a community following Jesus together. That's the context where it makes sense to speak directly about sin directly as an issue of disobedience, rebellion, or tangible trust and love for Jesus. Jesus is always the most direct, blunt, and harsh with the religious people; his approach is very different for people that don't know him or God.
With that crowd, he shows them a side of God they haven't seen before; a God that loves them, cares about who they are, looks on their plights with compassion. It's in light of this new notion of God that there comes a call to give up the sin. If we're even going to think about addressing the sin of someone that doesn't follow Jesus, it better be accompanied (and preceded) by interactions that are characterized by the preceding.
It's in the relationships where we have already claimed to understand, know, trust, and experience some of God's love for us but are still choosing to turn to our sin instead of Jesus we need to be willing to identify and call each other out of that sin. The majority of that post is meant primarily for the context of a community following Jesus.
I think we're very much responsible for calling people to repentance. But I think how that happens should look different with people that follow Jesus than it does with people that don't.
I think most of the implications for the post are for the context of a community following Jesus together. That's the context where it makes sense to speak directly about sin directly as an issue of disobedience, rebellion, or tangible trust and love for Jesus. Jesus is always the most direct, blunt, and harsh with the religious people; his approach is very different for people that don't know him or God.
With that crowd, he shows them a side of God they haven't seen before; a God that loves them, cares about who they are, looks on their plights with compassion. It's in light of this new notion of God that there comes a call to give up the sin. If we're even going to think about addressing the sin of someone that doesn't follow Jesus, it better be accompanied (and preceded) by interactions that are characterized by the preceding.
It's in the relationships where we have already claimed to understand, know, trust, and experience some of God's love for us but are still choosing to turn to our sin instead of Jesus we need to be willing to identify and call each other out of that sin. The majority of that post is meant primarily for the context of a community following Jesus.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
References this show called "Gone Too Far". The basic premise is that the host of the show is a recovering drug addict that used to do basically everything that has made significant steps toward being completely clean. He helps families of people who are currently addicted to drugs plan interventions and offers to provide rehab treatment should they be willing to take steps toward letting go of their addiction. Basically what this is, is an attempt to take what's going on in this episode with this girl, her addiction to meth, and how the different people in her life respond to it and compare it to us, our sin, and how we respond to each others sin as a community. In the comparison, meth will generally be paralleled with sin, Megan with someone struggling with some particular sin, and all other characters as various ways a community can respond that person. It'll make a hundred times more sense if you actually watch the episode first.
Here's the link, probably needa copy/paste it:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/gone-too-far-ep-7-megan/1627088/playlist.jhtml
======================
Part One: The Intro
======================
Implications:
1)Just because we have struggled or are struggling with something, doesn't disqualify us from speaking truth to each other about those same issues.
2)It's not on us to make someone start or stop doing something. It is on us to give them the opportunity.
3)Our experiences aren't just for us. Our freedom is for our community.
4)Just because a community is highly religious, doesn't mean it's free from things that are completely capable of warring against our bodies, souls, and relationships.
===================================================
Part Two: DJ Am Talks to Megan's Sister and Cousin
===================================================
Implications:
5)Our community probably has probably noticed much more than we realize.
6)Different patterns of sin can and do coexist, and probably aren't unrelated.
7)We need to believe that freedom is possible for each other. And verbalize it.
8)We need to realize that our sin is actually really a dire thing. Like...it's really bad. Like...it's not just an inconvenience.
========================================
Part 3: DJ Am Talks to Megan's Parents
========================================
Implications:
9)Choosing to sit in our sin might cost us something that could have been a huge blessing in our lives.
10)Even if that is the case, there's still hope.
11)Everyone else wanting it for us isn't enough. (Us wanting it for someone isn't enough)
=============================================
Part Four: DJ Am talks to Megan's Boyfriend
=============================================
Implications:
12)Don't help people do stupid stuff.
13)We need to be willing to call people out when they're helping people do stupid stuff.
14)Sometimes we can't sugarcoat reality away.
15)Sometimes its appropriate to have negative reactions to the way people we care about are choosing to live. Watching each other choose sin instead of Jesus shouldn't be something we're ok with.
===========================================================================
Part Five: DJ Am Gets A Doctors Opinion On Megan Doing Meth While Pregnant
===========================================================================
Implications:
16)Our sin doesn't only affect us.
17)It's still not too late.
18)We going to have to decide if we love Jesus more than we love our sin.
===============================
Part Six: DJ Am Talks to Megan
===============================
Implications:
19)Know that the most noticeable things usually aren't the deepest issues.
20)Sin is our choice. So is leaving it behind.
21)Our own failures can be incredibly relevant to people that are struggling.
22)Sin will make us settle.
23)We do stupid stuff to spite God but it just jacks us up.
24)We're quick to blame other things for our sin. It's our responsibility to confront that in each other directly.
25)Saying we're willing to leave our sin behind doesn't mean we're willing to leave it behind. Leaving it behind means we're willing to leave it behind. It's our responsibility to urge each other to actually commit to that.
26)We can't let each other be pansies. (what do you mean you can have it and not use it. no you can't)
27)We need to encourage each other to be honest about our sin and stop hiding in the shame.
28)We need to have compassion with each other in understanding that letting go of sin is scary. Trusting God is hard when it actually requires that you trust him.
29)Let us encourage each other as we let go of sin and cling to Jesus so that we can be a community of testimonies of a God that brings a freedom that we never thought possible.
================================================
Part Six: DJ Am Tells the Family She's Pregnant
================================================
Implications:
30)It's ok for us to be angry and hurt by people doing us wrong. But the next thing they do is set up the intervention and treatment, not figure out how to return the favor.
===============================================================
Part Seven: DJ Am Coaches the Family on Doing an Intervention
===============================================================
Implications:
31)Because we love each other, we have to be willing to confront each other.
32)In case you missed it...there's hope.
===================================
Part Eight: The Family Intervenes
==================================
Implications:
33)Our sin can make us deaf to kindness of the people that love us.
34)We need to be direct about the ugliness of each others sin.
35)Our sin can change us.
36)Confronting each other with the ways it hurts us to watch them embrace sin doesn't promise to be an easy or pleasant thing to do.
37)We have to know when to release people. They need to know its happening and why its happening.
38)We need to understand that when everything is said and done, the decision is still theirs to make.
=====================
Part Nine: Treatment
=====================
Implications:
39)When we choose to give up our sin, we need to be ready to battle the thought of it and refute the lies associated with it just as much if not moreso than the actual thing.
40)Know that the failures of our past don't have to repeat themselves. They don't have to determine our future.
41)Just because someone was absolutely essential to our own fight against something doesn't make them invincible. Let's have the gratefulness to be thankful and the graciousness to recognize that we aren't the only ones who struggle.
42)Our history of sin can make us question God's ability to fully redeem our circumstances.
================================
Part Ten: Megan's Baby Is Born
================================
Implications:
43)One last time, it's not too late. there's hope.
44)Let's recognize and be thankful that God sends people when we need it. Let's be willing to be the people that are sent.
====================================
Part 11: Recap
====================================
What if we behaved as though we thought that sin was as serious, as real, of an issue as a meth addiction? What if we experienced the depth of hurt, grief, and concern for our friends entrenched in sin as this family felt for their daughter/sister/cousin? What if we were less like her boyfriend that did whatever he could to convince himself that there was nothing he could do about it? What if we decided we loved enough to risk conflict? What if we valued each others relationships with God more than we valued keeping the peace?
Would we reject passivity in our relationships, accept responsibility for ourselves and each other, lead each closer to Jesus courageously, and expect to see God move amongst his people.
Amen.
Here's the link, probably needa copy/paste it:
http://www.mtv.com/videos/gone-too-far-ep-7-megan/1627088/playlist.jhtml
======================
Part One: The Intro
======================
Implications:
1)Just because we have struggled or are struggling with something, doesn't disqualify us from speaking truth to each other about those same issues.
2)It's not on us to make someone start or stop doing something. It is on us to give them the opportunity.
3)Our experiences aren't just for us. Our freedom is for our community.
4)Just because a community is highly religious, doesn't mean it's free from things that are completely capable of warring against our bodies, souls, and relationships.
===================================================
Part Two: DJ Am Talks to Megan's Sister and Cousin
===================================================
Implications:
5)Our community probably has probably noticed much more than we realize.
6)Different patterns of sin can and do coexist, and probably aren't unrelated.
7)We need to believe that freedom is possible for each other. And verbalize it.
8)We need to realize that our sin is actually really a dire thing. Like...it's really bad. Like...it's not just an inconvenience.
========================================
Part 3: DJ Am Talks to Megan's Parents
========================================
Implications:
9)Choosing to sit in our sin might cost us something that could have been a huge blessing in our lives.
10)Even if that is the case, there's still hope.
11)Everyone else wanting it for us isn't enough. (Us wanting it for someone isn't enough)
=============================================
Part Four: DJ Am talks to Megan's Boyfriend
=============================================
Implications:
12)Don't help people do stupid stuff.
13)We need to be willing to call people out when they're helping people do stupid stuff.
14)Sometimes we can't sugarcoat reality away.
15)Sometimes its appropriate to have negative reactions to the way people we care about are choosing to live. Watching each other choose sin instead of Jesus shouldn't be something we're ok with.
===========================================================================
Part Five: DJ Am Gets A Doctors Opinion On Megan Doing Meth While Pregnant
===========================================================================
Implications:
16)Our sin doesn't only affect us.
17)It's still not too late.
18)We going to have to decide if we love Jesus more than we love our sin.
===============================
Part Six: DJ Am Talks to Megan
===============================
Implications:
19)Know that the most noticeable things usually aren't the deepest issues.
20)Sin is our choice. So is leaving it behind.
21)Our own failures can be incredibly relevant to people that are struggling.
22)Sin will make us settle.
23)We do stupid stuff to spite God but it just jacks us up.
24)We're quick to blame other things for our sin. It's our responsibility to confront that in each other directly.
25)Saying we're willing to leave our sin behind doesn't mean we're willing to leave it behind. Leaving it behind means we're willing to leave it behind. It's our responsibility to urge each other to actually commit to that.
26)We can't let each other be pansies. (what do you mean you can have it and not use it. no you can't)
27)We need to encourage each other to be honest about our sin and stop hiding in the shame.
28)We need to have compassion with each other in understanding that letting go of sin is scary. Trusting God is hard when it actually requires that you trust him.
29)Let us encourage each other as we let go of sin and cling to Jesus so that we can be a community of testimonies of a God that brings a freedom that we never thought possible.
================================================
Part Six: DJ Am Tells the Family She's Pregnant
================================================
Implications:
30)It's ok for us to be angry and hurt by people doing us wrong. But the next thing they do is set up the intervention and treatment, not figure out how to return the favor.
===============================================================
Part Seven: DJ Am Coaches the Family on Doing an Intervention
===============================================================
Implications:
31)Because we love each other, we have to be willing to confront each other.
32)In case you missed it...there's hope.
===================================
Part Eight: The Family Intervenes
==================================
Implications:
33)Our sin can make us deaf to kindness of the people that love us.
34)We need to be direct about the ugliness of each others sin.
35)Our sin can change us.
36)Confronting each other with the ways it hurts us to watch them embrace sin doesn't promise to be an easy or pleasant thing to do.
37)We have to know when to release people. They need to know its happening and why its happening.
38)We need to understand that when everything is said and done, the decision is still theirs to make.
=====================
Part Nine: Treatment
=====================
Implications:
39)When we choose to give up our sin, we need to be ready to battle the thought of it and refute the lies associated with it just as much if not moreso than the actual thing.
40)Know that the failures of our past don't have to repeat themselves. They don't have to determine our future.
41)Just because someone was absolutely essential to our own fight against something doesn't make them invincible. Let's have the gratefulness to be thankful and the graciousness to recognize that we aren't the only ones who struggle.
42)Our history of sin can make us question God's ability to fully redeem our circumstances.
================================
Part Ten: Megan's Baby Is Born
================================
Implications:
43)One last time, it's not too late. there's hope.
44)Let's recognize and be thankful that God sends people when we need it. Let's be willing to be the people that are sent.
====================================
Part 11: Recap
====================================
What if we behaved as though we thought that sin was as serious, as real, of an issue as a meth addiction? What if we experienced the depth of hurt, grief, and concern for our friends entrenched in sin as this family felt for their daughter/sister/cousin? What if we were less like her boyfriend that did whatever he could to convince himself that there was nothing he could do about it? What if we decided we loved enough to risk conflict? What if we valued each others relationships with God more than we valued keeping the peace?
Would we reject passivity in our relationships, accept responsibility for ourselves and each other, lead each closer to Jesus courageously, and expect to see God move amongst his people.
Amen.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Perspective.
The Setup (Context).
The Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt. They start growing. The King of Egypt gets scared and treats them worse to break spirits, demoralize, and prevent an uprising. Executes all the male children to prevent their further growth as a people. Baby Moses is cleverly hidden, saved, and then adopted into the King's family (ironic). He grows up with the privileges of royalty, but watching his people be oppressed. He sees an overseer beating a Hebrew and kills the overseer. He gets found out. He flees to another country. he adopts a new culture and a new lifestyle as a shepherd. The King of Egypt dies. The people groan in their slavery. God takes notice. God does the fireproof bush trick. Moses sees it and approaches. Then:
God Speaks (The Paradox).
Exodus 3:7-10
The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their slave drivers, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
Observations (Abridged)
1. God is aware of the affliction of the people.
2. He gives heed to their cries.
3. He says He has come to deliver them.
4. His only action in addressing the situation is sending Moses to lead the people out of Egypt.
Question (Pointed).
How is God sending Moses to bring the people out of Egypt the same thing as God coming down to deliver them?
Interpretation (Epic)
God calling Moses to lead people was His answer to the Hebrews prayer. Sure, Moses had a role in the decision, and of course it affected him. But the heart of his call into leadership wasn't about him. It was about God understanding and giving ear to the prayers on the hearts of people, and sending an answer, in the form of Moses. What happens if Moses refused that call and hadn't gone back to the people? An entire, growing but oppressed nation may well have remained in that very real, physical bondage.
The Point (Humbling)
There's things and places I'm being sent to. What does it look like to treat those things like I believe that God sending me there is his response to someones prayer for freedom? If I don't take up the call, who am I leaving in their bondage?
The Hebrews are enslaved in Egypt. They start growing. The King of Egypt gets scared and treats them worse to break spirits, demoralize, and prevent an uprising. Executes all the male children to prevent their further growth as a people. Baby Moses is cleverly hidden, saved, and then adopted into the King's family (ironic). He grows up with the privileges of royalty, but watching his people be oppressed. He sees an overseer beating a Hebrew and kills the overseer. He gets found out. He flees to another country. he adopts a new culture and a new lifestyle as a shepherd. The King of Egypt dies. The people groan in their slavery. God takes notice. God does the fireproof bush trick. Moses sees it and approaches. Then:
God Speaks (The Paradox).
Exodus 3:7-10
The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their slave drivers, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
Observations (Abridged)
1. God is aware of the affliction of the people.
2. He gives heed to their cries.
3. He says He has come to deliver them.
4. His only action in addressing the situation is sending Moses to lead the people out of Egypt.
Question (Pointed).
How is God sending Moses to bring the people out of Egypt the same thing as God coming down to deliver them?
Interpretation (Epic)
God calling Moses to lead people was His answer to the Hebrews prayer. Sure, Moses had a role in the decision, and of course it affected him. But the heart of his call into leadership wasn't about him. It was about God understanding and giving ear to the prayers on the hearts of people, and sending an answer, in the form of Moses. What happens if Moses refused that call and hadn't gone back to the people? An entire, growing but oppressed nation may well have remained in that very real, physical bondage.
The Point (Humbling)
There's things and places I'm being sent to. What does it look like to treat those things like I believe that God sending me there is his response to someones prayer for freedom? If I don't take up the call, who am I leaving in their bondage?
Monday, March 22, 2010
A Question.
Quotes from a book more or less about the underground church in Romania during the rule of communism.
There's alotta quotes there...like...alot. But these ones made it through like 3 cuts. take the time to read them.
Tortured for Christ.
-Richard Wurmbrand.
The language of love an the language of seduction are the same. The one who wishes a girl for a wife and the one who wishes her only for a night both say the words "I love you."
One after one bishops and pastors arose and declared that communism and Christianity were fundamentally the same and could co-exist. My wife and I were present at this congress. She said to me "Stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They're spitting in his face." I said to her, "If i do o, you will lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband."
When he heard of Jesus resurrection, he jumped for joy and swore, using very dirty profanity. He had not yet learned out "holy phrases" but he truly loved the lord with his whole heart.
When Christians in free countries win a soul for Christ, the new believer may become a member of a quietly living church. But when those in captive nations win somebody, we know that he may have to go to prison and that his children may become orphans. The joy of having brought someone to Christ is always mixed with the feeling of knowing that there is a price to be paid.
After he spent an hour giving me all the arguments against the existence of God, I asked him, "Sir, tell me, if there is no God, why is it that you pray when you're in trouble?" In shock, he asked, "How did you know that I pray?" Just as there are many that claim Jesus but are not Christians, there are many who claim Atheism but are not really atheists.
Every soul won for Christ must be made to be a soul-winner. Not only a convert, but a missionary. Many of the Russians were not only converted but were reckless and daring in sharing Christ, saying it was the least they could do for the one that died for them.
The secret police greatly persecuted the underground church because they recognized that if a man believed in Christ, he would never be a mindless, willing subject.
Never imagine a prison as in the West when you hear about a sentenced brother in a restricted nation. Prison there means starvation, torture, and brainwashing.
For being Christians:
"these are only a handful of what happened. other things cannot be told. my heart would fail to have to recount them."
1. tortured with hot knives and iron pokers.
2. forced to stand for two weeks.
3. his 14 year old son was beaten in front of him. About to give in, his son replies, "don't do me the injustice of having a traitor as a parent. Withstand." He did. His son was beaten to death in front of him.
4. Handcuffs with nails were used. When they shivered from the cold, the nails would tear the flesh.
5. hung upside down and beaten.
6. frozen in ice-rooms until the point of death. then removed and thawed. then frozen again.
7. forced to stand in wooden coffins for hours on end. nails driven through the wood, reminding them everytime they slouched, twitched, or were met with fatigue.
8. men were tied to crosses and placed on the floor. All the other prisoners were forced to relieve themselves on the faces of those tied to the crosses. the crosses were then erected and mocked. "Look at your Christ, how beautiful he is, how fragrant is the incense he brings from heaven!"
9. a priest was forced to consecrate feces and urine and give it as communion.
10. beat on the bottom of the feet.
11. beat on the testicles.
12. fingernails torn out.
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe. when a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human, no restraint from the depth of evil that is in man. I heard one torturer say "I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart." He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture on Christian prisoners.
Communism had destroyed any moral sense in them. They often boasted that they had no pity in their hearts. I learned from them. As they allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I would leave not the smallest place for Satan in mine.
For seventeen hours a day we heard "communism is good. Christianity is stupid. Give up." Several Christians have asked how we could resist brainwashing. There is only one method of resistance to brainwashing: heartwashing. If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus, and if the heart loves him, one can resist all tortures.
It was forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that if you were caught doing this you received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price, we accepted their terms and made a deal: we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us. Everyone was happy.
One of the leaders of the torture often said to Christians, "You know, I am God. I have the power of life and death over you. The one who is in heaven cannot decide to keep you in life. Everything depends upon me. If I wish, you life. If I wish, you die. I am God." One of the men gave him this answer, "You don't know what a deep think you have said. You have been created to become like God, with the life of God in your heart. Jesus said to the Jews of his time, 'ye are gods.' Believe me, your real calling is to be Godlike - to have the character of God, not a torturer." Though this man paid no mind at the time, he later came to Christ.
When one Christian was sentenced to death, he was allowed to see his wife before being executed. his last words to her were, "You must know that I die loving those who kill me. They don't know what they do and my last request of you is to love them too. Don't have bitterness in your heat because they killed your beloved one." These words impressed the officer who attended the discussion between the two. He told me the story in prison where he had been sent for becoming a Christian.
If a poor man is a great lover of music, he gives his last dollar to listen to a concert. He is then without money, but he does not feel furstrated. He has heard beautiful things. I don't feel frustrated to have lost many years in prison, for I have seen beautiful things.
A brother entered prison on account of his work in the Underground Church. He left behind a wife with six children. His older daughters of seventeen and nineteen could not get a job. The only one that gives jobs in a Communist country is the state, and it does not give jobs to children of criminal Christians. Please don't judge this story according to moral standards; just receive the facts. The two daughters of a Christian martyr - Christians themselves - became prostitutes to support their younger brothers and sick mother. Their younger brother of fourteen became insane when he saw it and had to be put in an asylum. When years later the imprisoned father returned, his only prayer was, "God, take me to prison again. I cannot bear to see this." his prayer was answered ad he was jailed again for the crime of having witnessed for Christ. His daughters were no longer prostitutes, as they received jobs by complying with the demands of the secret police - they become informers. As daughters of a Christian Martyr, they are received with honor in every house. They listen and then they report everything they hear to the secret police. Don't just say that this is ugly and immoral - of course it is - but ask yourself if it is not also your sin that such tragedies occur, that such Christian families are left alone, and are not helped by you who are free.
Two christian organizations paid the communist government $10,000 for my freedom. I could now leave Romania. I would not have left Romania, despite the dangers, if the leaders of the underground church had not commanded me to use this opportunity to leave and be their voice in the free world. Upon my departure the government told me not to speak against them. They told me how easy it would be to have me killed, or kidnapped and brought back. They also told me they could invalidate my testimony by destroying me morally, spreading a story about me with a woman, theft, or some other sin; because it is well known that Westerners - especially Americans - are very easily deceived."
Friendship means one soul in two breasts.
I have seen Christians in communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with redhot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold -- and praying with fervor for the communists. This is humanly inexplicable. It is the love of Christ, which was poured out in our hearts.
As the grave insists on having all - rich and poor; young and old; men of all races, nations, and political convictions; saints and criminals - so love is all embracing. Christ, the incarnate love, wants all men.
I saw my fellow prisoners as they will be. I saw in the shabby, dirty, weak martyr near me the splendidly crowned saint of tomorrow. Looking at men like this - not as they are but as they will be - I could also see in our persecutors a Saul of Tarsus... and a future Apostle Paul. Some have already become so.
It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the communists. it was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. it was being tortured by them that we learned to love them.
God sees things differently than we see them, just as we see differently than an ant. From the human point of view, to be tied to a cross and smeared with excrement is a horrible thing. Nonetheless, the Bible calls the sufferings of martyrs "light afflictions." To be in prison for fourteen years is a long period to us. The bible calls it "but for a moment," and tells us that these things are "working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory". This gives us cause to suppose that perhaps the fierce crimes of the communists, which are inexcusable to us, are lighter in the eyes of God than they are in our eyes. Their tyranny, which has lasted almost an entire century, may be before God, for whom a thousand years are like one day, only a moment of erring astray. They can still be saved. The gates of heaven are not closed for them. They can repent like everyone else. We must call them to that repentance.
A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.
A flower, if you bruise it under your feet, rewards you by giving you its perfume. Likewise, Christians, tortured by the communists, rewarded their torturers with love. We brought many of our jailers to Christ. We are dominated by one desire: to give communists who have made us suffer the best we have, the salvation that comes from our Lord.
Many Christians in the west have no love for those in captive nations. Proof of it is that they do nothing for their salvation. They have missions to persuade Christians of one denomination to change to another, but have no mission to captive nations, claiming that such work is "against the law"! They don't love them. But it is not just that they don't love them. By being complacent, and full of neglect, the Western church strengthens the infidels in their infidelity. By not loving communists, and doing nothing to win them for Christ (under the pretext that they are not allowed to do so, as if the first Christians asked permission from Nero to spread the gospel), Western churches also do not love their own flocks either, if they do not allow them to participate in this spiritual battle around the world.
What encourages us to preach the gospel in captive nations is that there those who become Christians are full of love and zeal. The underground church is poor and suffering, but it has few lukewarm members.
Whoever has known the spiritual beauty of the underground church cannot be satisfied anymore with the emptiness of some Western churches.
I suffer in the West more than I suffered in a Communist jail because now I see with my own eyes that Western civilization is dying. You are dying. I see in you all the characteristic stigma of decay. I can prove that your great wealth and your great poverty, your capitalism and your socialism, your wars and your revolutions, your atheism and your pessimism and your cynicism, your immorality, your broken marriages, your birth - control, that is bleeding you from the bottom and killing you off at the top in your brains - can prove to you that there are characteristic marks of the dying ages of ancient states - Alexandria, Greece, and neurotic Rome.
We Christians are often half heatedly on the side of whole truth, when many are wholeheartedly on the side of a lie.
I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren.
The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul.
The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of captive nations.
I have found truly joyful Christians in only in the Bible, the underground church, and in prison.
Suppose that we could speak with an embryo in his mother's womb and that you would tell him that the embryonic life is only a short one after which follows a real, long life. What would the embryo answer? he would say just what you atheists answer to us, when we speak to you about paradise and hell. He would say that the life in the mother's womb is the only one and that everything else is religious foolishness. but if the embryo could think, he would say to himself, 'Here arms grow on me. I do not need them. I cannot even stretch them. why do they grow? Perhaps they grow for a future stage of my existence, in which i will have to work with them. Legs grow, but i have to keep them bent toward my chest. why do they grow? probably life in a large world follows, where I will have to walk. Eyes grow, although I am surrounded by perfect darkness and don't need them. Why do i have eyes? probably a world with light and colors will follow.' So, if the embryo would reflect on his own development, he would know about a life outside of his mother's womb, without having seen it. It is the same with us. As long as we are young, we have vigor, but no mind to use it properly. When with the years, we have grown in knowledge and wisdom, the hearse waits to take us to the grave. Why was it necessary to grow in knowledge and wisdom that we can use no more? Why do arms, legs, and eyes grow on an embryo? It is for what follows. So it is with us here. We grow here in experience, knowledge, and wisdom for what follows. We are prepared to serve on a higher level that follows death.
Pastors in the West usually assume that those whom they have in church are really convinced about the main truths of the faith, which they are not. You rarely hear a sermon proving the truth of our faith. But behind the Iron Curtain men who have never learned to do it give their new converts a very strong foundation.
Scripture remains true even if the devil quotes it.
By converting those that persecute Christians, we free not only the victims but the persecutors themselves.
Oh, how underground Christians rejoice on the rare occasion that they meet a serious Christian from the West.
Persecution has always produced a better Christian - a witnessing Christian, a soul-winning Christian. Communist persecution has backfired and produced serious, dedicated Christians such as are rarely seen in free lands. These people cannot understand how anyone can be a Christian and not want to win every soul they meet.
Einstein writes 'Even if we cleanse Judaism of the prophets and Christianity as Jesus taught it from an afterlife, we have a religion which can save the world from all social evils.'
Marx writes 'Christianity is the ideal religion for remaking characters destroyed by sin.'
Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform and countless medicines writes that his greatest discovery was that he was a sinner and that he could be saved by the grace of God.
The life, the self-sacrifice, the blood that believers are ready to shed for their faith, is the greatest argument for Christianity.
In a letter smuggled out secretly, the underground church writes, 'We don't pray to be better christians, but that we may be the only kind of christians God means us to be: Christlike. That is, Chrsitians who bear willingly the cross for God's glory.'
The Bible says that "he who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). These words have meaning in captive nations.
Hear the cries of your brothers and sisters in captive nations! They do not ask for escape, safety, or an easy life. They ask only for the tools to counteract the poisoning of their youth with atheism. They ask for Bibles to use in spreading the Word of God.
We are not guiltless of the fact that others live in rebellion. We are guilty at least by neglect, for we have not made Christ and his fullness known to them.
While our Lord Jesus agonized in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John were a mere stone's throw away from the greatest drama of history - but they were deep in sleep. How much of your own Christan concern and giving is directed toward the relief of the martyr church? In these countries, the drama, bravery, and martyrdom of the early church are happening all over again - now - and the free church sleeps. Our brethren there, alone and without help, are waging the greatest, most courageous battle of the 20th century, equal to the heroism, courage, and dedication of the early church. and the free church sleeps on, oblivious of the their struggle and agony, just as Peter, James, and John slept in the moment of their saviors agony. Will you sleep while your brethren in Christ suffer and fight for the gospel?
Now I have delivered the message from the faithful, martyred church - from your brothers and sisters suffering in bonds and under attack across the world from Indonesia to Africa. Don't abandon them.
In the Western world, persecution of Christians is often deemed a human rights issue, with an emphasis on the government to guarantee religious freedom and the protection it awards. While this may be true in part, we need to look beyond human reasoning and into the heavenlies. Jesus said if they persecuted him they will persecute us, that we will be hated for his name's sake. That we should "rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven." Although we need to take every opportunity to help those in need, we are to recognize that the "rite" of Christians is to be persecuted.
It is difficult to comprehend that joy and freedom can coexist with some of the worst sufferings known to man, to reconcile how suffering can be granted to us as a "gift" on behalf of Christ. But there is little place for human understanding in the spiritual man destined to live eternally with Christ.
Voice of the Martyrs has developed five main goals in serving today's persecuted church:
1. provide bibles, literature, and radio to restricted nations in their language.
2. give relief to the families of martyrs
3. help believers to rebuild their lives and witness in countries that have suffered communist oppression.
4. win to Christ those who oppose the Gospel.
5. shed light on atrocities committed against the church, and on the courage and faith of those persecuted.
Now I have delivered the message from the faithful, martyred church - from your brothers and sisters suffering in bonds and under attack across the world from Indonesia to Africa. Don't abandon them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So there's those. As I read this and talked about it with a friend, we were left with a question.
Are we really following Jesus?
I don't know.
There's alotta quotes there...like...alot. But these ones made it through like 3 cuts. take the time to read them.
Tortured for Christ.
-Richard Wurmbrand.
The language of love an the language of seduction are the same. The one who wishes a girl for a wife and the one who wishes her only for a night both say the words "I love you."
One after one bishops and pastors arose and declared that communism and Christianity were fundamentally the same and could co-exist. My wife and I were present at this congress. She said to me "Stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ! They're spitting in his face." I said to her, "If i do o, you will lose your husband." She replied, "I don't wish to have a coward as a husband."
When he heard of Jesus resurrection, he jumped for joy and swore, using very dirty profanity. He had not yet learned out "holy phrases" but he truly loved the lord with his whole heart.
When Christians in free countries win a soul for Christ, the new believer may become a member of a quietly living church. But when those in captive nations win somebody, we know that he may have to go to prison and that his children may become orphans. The joy of having brought someone to Christ is always mixed with the feeling of knowing that there is a price to be paid.
After he spent an hour giving me all the arguments against the existence of God, I asked him, "Sir, tell me, if there is no God, why is it that you pray when you're in trouble?" In shock, he asked, "How did you know that I pray?" Just as there are many that claim Jesus but are not Christians, there are many who claim Atheism but are not really atheists.
Every soul won for Christ must be made to be a soul-winner. Not only a convert, but a missionary. Many of the Russians were not only converted but were reckless and daring in sharing Christ, saying it was the least they could do for the one that died for them.
The secret police greatly persecuted the underground church because they recognized that if a man believed in Christ, he would never be a mindless, willing subject.
Never imagine a prison as in the West when you hear about a sentenced brother in a restricted nation. Prison there means starvation, torture, and brainwashing.
For being Christians:
"these are only a handful of what happened. other things cannot be told. my heart would fail to have to recount them."
1. tortured with hot knives and iron pokers.
2. forced to stand for two weeks.
3. his 14 year old son was beaten in front of him. About to give in, his son replies, "don't do me the injustice of having a traitor as a parent. Withstand." He did. His son was beaten to death in front of him.
4. Handcuffs with nails were used. When they shivered from the cold, the nails would tear the flesh.
5. hung upside down and beaten.
6. frozen in ice-rooms until the point of death. then removed and thawed. then frozen again.
7. forced to stand in wooden coffins for hours on end. nails driven through the wood, reminding them everytime they slouched, twitched, or were met with fatigue.
8. men were tied to crosses and placed on the floor. All the other prisoners were forced to relieve themselves on the faces of those tied to the crosses. the crosses were then erected and mocked. "Look at your Christ, how beautiful he is, how fragrant is the incense he brings from heaven!"
9. a priest was forced to consecrate feces and urine and give it as communion.
10. beat on the bottom of the feet.
11. beat on the testicles.
12. fingernails torn out.
The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe. when a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human, no restraint from the depth of evil that is in man. I heard one torturer say "I thank God, in whom I don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart." He expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture on Christian prisoners.
Communism had destroyed any moral sense in them. They often boasted that they had no pity in their hearts. I learned from them. As they allowed no place for Jesus in their hearts, I decided I would leave not the smallest place for Satan in mine.
For seventeen hours a day we heard "communism is good. Christianity is stupid. Give up." Several Christians have asked how we could resist brainwashing. There is only one method of resistance to brainwashing: heartwashing. If the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus, and if the heart loves him, one can resist all tortures.
It was forbidden to preach to other prisoners. It was understood that if you were caught doing this you received a severe beating. A number of us decided to pay the price, we accepted their terms and made a deal: we preached and they beat us. We were happy preaching; they were happy beating us. Everyone was happy.
One of the leaders of the torture often said to Christians, "You know, I am God. I have the power of life and death over you. The one who is in heaven cannot decide to keep you in life. Everything depends upon me. If I wish, you life. If I wish, you die. I am God." One of the men gave him this answer, "You don't know what a deep think you have said. You have been created to become like God, with the life of God in your heart. Jesus said to the Jews of his time, 'ye are gods.' Believe me, your real calling is to be Godlike - to have the character of God, not a torturer." Though this man paid no mind at the time, he later came to Christ.
When one Christian was sentenced to death, he was allowed to see his wife before being executed. his last words to her were, "You must know that I die loving those who kill me. They don't know what they do and my last request of you is to love them too. Don't have bitterness in your heat because they killed your beloved one." These words impressed the officer who attended the discussion between the two. He told me the story in prison where he had been sent for becoming a Christian.
If a poor man is a great lover of music, he gives his last dollar to listen to a concert. He is then without money, but he does not feel furstrated. He has heard beautiful things. I don't feel frustrated to have lost many years in prison, for I have seen beautiful things.
A brother entered prison on account of his work in the Underground Church. He left behind a wife with six children. His older daughters of seventeen and nineteen could not get a job. The only one that gives jobs in a Communist country is the state, and it does not give jobs to children of criminal Christians. Please don't judge this story according to moral standards; just receive the facts. The two daughters of a Christian martyr - Christians themselves - became prostitutes to support their younger brothers and sick mother. Their younger brother of fourteen became insane when he saw it and had to be put in an asylum. When years later the imprisoned father returned, his only prayer was, "God, take me to prison again. I cannot bear to see this." his prayer was answered ad he was jailed again for the crime of having witnessed for Christ. His daughters were no longer prostitutes, as they received jobs by complying with the demands of the secret police - they become informers. As daughters of a Christian Martyr, they are received with honor in every house. They listen and then they report everything they hear to the secret police. Don't just say that this is ugly and immoral - of course it is - but ask yourself if it is not also your sin that such tragedies occur, that such Christian families are left alone, and are not helped by you who are free.
Two christian organizations paid the communist government $10,000 for my freedom. I could now leave Romania. I would not have left Romania, despite the dangers, if the leaders of the underground church had not commanded me to use this opportunity to leave and be their voice in the free world. Upon my departure the government told me not to speak against them. They told me how easy it would be to have me killed, or kidnapped and brought back. They also told me they could invalidate my testimony by destroying me morally, spreading a story about me with a woman, theft, or some other sin; because it is well known that Westerners - especially Americans - are very easily deceived."
Friendship means one soul in two breasts.
I have seen Christians in communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with redhot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold -- and praying with fervor for the communists. This is humanly inexplicable. It is the love of Christ, which was poured out in our hearts.
As the grave insists on having all - rich and poor; young and old; men of all races, nations, and political convictions; saints and criminals - so love is all embracing. Christ, the incarnate love, wants all men.
I saw my fellow prisoners as they will be. I saw in the shabby, dirty, weak martyr near me the splendidly crowned saint of tomorrow. Looking at men like this - not as they are but as they will be - I could also see in our persecutors a Saul of Tarsus... and a future Apostle Paul. Some have already become so.
It was in prison that we found the hope of salvation for the communists. it was there that we developed a sense of responsibility toward them. it was being tortured by them that we learned to love them.
God sees things differently than we see them, just as we see differently than an ant. From the human point of view, to be tied to a cross and smeared with excrement is a horrible thing. Nonetheless, the Bible calls the sufferings of martyrs "light afflictions." To be in prison for fourteen years is a long period to us. The bible calls it "but for a moment," and tells us that these things are "working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory". This gives us cause to suppose that perhaps the fierce crimes of the communists, which are inexcusable to us, are lighter in the eyes of God than they are in our eyes. Their tyranny, which has lasted almost an entire century, may be before God, for whom a thousand years are like one day, only a moment of erring astray. They can still be saved. The gates of heaven are not closed for them. They can repent like everyone else. We must call them to that repentance.
A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.
A flower, if you bruise it under your feet, rewards you by giving you its perfume. Likewise, Christians, tortured by the communists, rewarded their torturers with love. We brought many of our jailers to Christ. We are dominated by one desire: to give communists who have made us suffer the best we have, the salvation that comes from our Lord.
Many Christians in the west have no love for those in captive nations. Proof of it is that they do nothing for their salvation. They have missions to persuade Christians of one denomination to change to another, but have no mission to captive nations, claiming that such work is "against the law"! They don't love them. But it is not just that they don't love them. By being complacent, and full of neglect, the Western church strengthens the infidels in their infidelity. By not loving communists, and doing nothing to win them for Christ (under the pretext that they are not allowed to do so, as if the first Christians asked permission from Nero to spread the gospel), Western churches also do not love their own flocks either, if they do not allow them to participate in this spiritual battle around the world.
What encourages us to preach the gospel in captive nations is that there those who become Christians are full of love and zeal. The underground church is poor and suffering, but it has few lukewarm members.
Whoever has known the spiritual beauty of the underground church cannot be satisfied anymore with the emptiness of some Western churches.
I suffer in the West more than I suffered in a Communist jail because now I see with my own eyes that Western civilization is dying. You are dying. I see in you all the characteristic stigma of decay. I can prove that your great wealth and your great poverty, your capitalism and your socialism, your wars and your revolutions, your atheism and your pessimism and your cynicism, your immorality, your broken marriages, your birth - control, that is bleeding you from the bottom and killing you off at the top in your brains - can prove to you that there are characteristic marks of the dying ages of ancient states - Alexandria, Greece, and neurotic Rome.
We Christians are often half heatedly on the side of whole truth, when many are wholeheartedly on the side of a lie.
I tremble because of the sufferings of those persecuted in different lands. I tremble thinking about the eternal destiny of their torturers. I tremble for Western Christians who don't help their persecuted brethren.
The quietness and rest for which I long would be an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul.
The West sleeps and must be awakened to see the plight of captive nations.
I have found truly joyful Christians in only in the Bible, the underground church, and in prison.
Suppose that we could speak with an embryo in his mother's womb and that you would tell him that the embryonic life is only a short one after which follows a real, long life. What would the embryo answer? he would say just what you atheists answer to us, when we speak to you about paradise and hell. He would say that the life in the mother's womb is the only one and that everything else is religious foolishness. but if the embryo could think, he would say to himself, 'Here arms grow on me. I do not need them. I cannot even stretch them. why do they grow? Perhaps they grow for a future stage of my existence, in which i will have to work with them. Legs grow, but i have to keep them bent toward my chest. why do they grow? probably life in a large world follows, where I will have to walk. Eyes grow, although I am surrounded by perfect darkness and don't need them. Why do i have eyes? probably a world with light and colors will follow.' So, if the embryo would reflect on his own development, he would know about a life outside of his mother's womb, without having seen it. It is the same with us. As long as we are young, we have vigor, but no mind to use it properly. When with the years, we have grown in knowledge and wisdom, the hearse waits to take us to the grave. Why was it necessary to grow in knowledge and wisdom that we can use no more? Why do arms, legs, and eyes grow on an embryo? It is for what follows. So it is with us here. We grow here in experience, knowledge, and wisdom for what follows. We are prepared to serve on a higher level that follows death.
Pastors in the West usually assume that those whom they have in church are really convinced about the main truths of the faith, which they are not. You rarely hear a sermon proving the truth of our faith. But behind the Iron Curtain men who have never learned to do it give their new converts a very strong foundation.
Scripture remains true even if the devil quotes it.
By converting those that persecute Christians, we free not only the victims but the persecutors themselves.
Oh, how underground Christians rejoice on the rare occasion that they meet a serious Christian from the West.
Persecution has always produced a better Christian - a witnessing Christian, a soul-winning Christian. Communist persecution has backfired and produced serious, dedicated Christians such as are rarely seen in free lands. These people cannot understand how anyone can be a Christian and not want to win every soul they meet.
Einstein writes 'Even if we cleanse Judaism of the prophets and Christianity as Jesus taught it from an afterlife, we have a religion which can save the world from all social evils.'
Marx writes 'Christianity is the ideal religion for remaking characters destroyed by sin.'
Simpson, the discoverer of chloroform and countless medicines writes that his greatest discovery was that he was a sinner and that he could be saved by the grace of God.
The life, the self-sacrifice, the blood that believers are ready to shed for their faith, is the greatest argument for Christianity.
In a letter smuggled out secretly, the underground church writes, 'We don't pray to be better christians, but that we may be the only kind of christians God means us to be: Christlike. That is, Chrsitians who bear willingly the cross for God's glory.'
The Bible says that "he who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37). These words have meaning in captive nations.
Hear the cries of your brothers and sisters in captive nations! They do not ask for escape, safety, or an easy life. They ask only for the tools to counteract the poisoning of their youth with atheism. They ask for Bibles to use in spreading the Word of God.
We are not guiltless of the fact that others live in rebellion. We are guilty at least by neglect, for we have not made Christ and his fullness known to them.
While our Lord Jesus agonized in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Peter, James, and John were a mere stone's throw away from the greatest drama of history - but they were deep in sleep. How much of your own Christan concern and giving is directed toward the relief of the martyr church? In these countries, the drama, bravery, and martyrdom of the early church are happening all over again - now - and the free church sleeps. Our brethren there, alone and without help, are waging the greatest, most courageous battle of the 20th century, equal to the heroism, courage, and dedication of the early church. and the free church sleeps on, oblivious of the their struggle and agony, just as Peter, James, and John slept in the moment of their saviors agony. Will you sleep while your brethren in Christ suffer and fight for the gospel?
Now I have delivered the message from the faithful, martyred church - from your brothers and sisters suffering in bonds and under attack across the world from Indonesia to Africa. Don't abandon them.
In the Western world, persecution of Christians is often deemed a human rights issue, with an emphasis on the government to guarantee religious freedom and the protection it awards. While this may be true in part, we need to look beyond human reasoning and into the heavenlies. Jesus said if they persecuted him they will persecute us, that we will be hated for his name's sake. That we should "rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven." Although we need to take every opportunity to help those in need, we are to recognize that the "rite" of Christians is to be persecuted.
It is difficult to comprehend that joy and freedom can coexist with some of the worst sufferings known to man, to reconcile how suffering can be granted to us as a "gift" on behalf of Christ. But there is little place for human understanding in the spiritual man destined to live eternally with Christ.
Voice of the Martyrs has developed five main goals in serving today's persecuted church:
1. provide bibles, literature, and radio to restricted nations in their language.
2. give relief to the families of martyrs
3. help believers to rebuild their lives and witness in countries that have suffered communist oppression.
4. win to Christ those who oppose the Gospel.
5. shed light on atrocities committed against the church, and on the courage and faith of those persecuted.
Now I have delivered the message from the faithful, martyred church - from your brothers and sisters suffering in bonds and under attack across the world from Indonesia to Africa. Don't abandon them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So there's those. As I read this and talked about it with a friend, we were left with a question.
Are we really following Jesus?
I don't know.
Monday, March 8, 2010
A few weeks ago
2ish am: I leave my room to shower. The elevator opens behind me, and I hear,
"Oh my God. I'm going to go to jail."
"Don't worry about it. You only have to be 16 in Canada. She's Canadian, right?"
"Oh my God. I'm going to go to jail."
I didn't really recognize the voices off hand so I kept going. As I'm in the shower, the guys come in and start showering too. After a minute or two I can pick out the voices as some folks from my floor that I'm acquainted with, but really don't know and haven't had any sort of legitimate conversation with to this point. The conversation basically repeats itself, and the initial guy sounds pretty worried. The buddy repeats his "Age of consent in Canada" thing. Then they start joking about the whole situation. Initial guy details how the deleted random girl from facebook and changed all his privacy settings so she wouldn't be able to "track him down". Jokes about Chris Hansen's "To Catch A Predator". Jokes about how she was "sucha bitch anyway".
Enter two other gentlemen from my floor to the showers. They enter the conversation and get the scoop from the first two guys. These guys I know a little bit better, though still not very well at all. One of the new guys I new had been doing some seeking, the other, I knew claimed Jesus. The conversation turns away from the hilarious topic of statutory rape to the wonderful world of webcams. The gents start exchanging stories of their recent webcam exploits, and how they've been figuring out the best strategies for tricking the most girls into showing them the most skin.
So I leave. I'm pretty mad. I don't really get angry, but I'm pretty pissed off. As I'm leaving I see two guys that I know aren't from our floor going into two different rooms on the floor with these sly little smirks. Needless to say, these particular rooms aren't men's rooms. Keep heading back towards my room. I pass by one of the girls that lives in one of those rooms. We make eye contact. Face full of guilt. Full of discomfort. She watched me watch random dude go into her room. Stutters a little bit. Stumbles over something to the effect of,
"hmmm..that's interesting...i don't think i've ever seen that guy before...weird..umkwelligottagonowgoodnightbye."
then runs off to her room and closes the door. Now i'm pissed and really sad. Sad because I know this young woman also claims Jesus. Sad because I know some of her struggles with men. Pissed because some random guy is about to take advantage of that then disappear, go back to wherever he lives, and have a conversation about this girl similar to the one those guys had in the bathroom. At this point, i'm like 80% mad. 20% sad.
I get back to my room and I'm kind of at a loss for what my response to the last 20 minutes is supposed to look like. With the gentlemen, I'm acquainted with them enough to where if I saw them face to face they would probably tell me all the details. But I can't seek that out, because there's no way I could share their sentiments on the situation, but at the same time we don't have the depth of relationship where I would have the authority to speak into their lives as anything other than some christian finding something else to condemn them for (at least that's my interpretation of their interpretation). With the woman, we've talked about it all before, her response to me in the hall said enough.
So I sit in my room trying to do the leftover work I have. But really, I'm just sitting there being angry and at a loss for a proper response. Eventually, not looking for a response anymore, just being angry. All the normal, almost cliche questions: Don't they those guys see that the women are real people? Where is the respect? Where is the value? What makes it ok for them to have their way with someone, play tricks and games to get what they want, and then leave, erase the person from their life, and talk crap about them like it doesn't even matter? What if that was your daughter? What if that was your future wife? Would you be ok with someone else treating them like that? For the men that I didn't know at all, it's not cool, but not really surprising I guess, but for the guys that were seeking, it makes sense that they're not finding anything, for the guys that claimed Jesus, I couldn't even really think about that one because it just hurt my brain trying to understand how they could think it was ok on any level. For the woman, why are you letting yourself be taken advantage of? Why can't you see that you're worth more than an hour of stimulation for some random guy? etc. etc. so on and so forth.
This is my initial response to seeing this in a group of maybe...
6 guys (only two of which I was familar with)
mistreating a group of
4 women (mentioned individually, only one of which i was familiar with)
And then it hits me. And then I get really really sad. Like 98% sad and 2% mad.
So what hit me?
REWIND.
-----------------------------------
Beginning of 7th grade I see my first semi-pornographic image. accidentally.
A few weeks later I see my 2nd semi-pornographic image. intentionally.
At the time, I knew it was shady enough to hide, but had no concept of it actually being wrong, or bad, or harmful. Over the next year and a half it gradually worked its way into my list of habits, escalating in frequency, becoming more explicit. Baby steps, sure, but if a baby steps for 18 months, he'll probably go quite a ways, and by the end, he'll just be walking. maybe not the most accurate analogy but you get the point.
The back half of 8th grade, I made that connection, and was pretty alarmed by how progressive of a habit it had become. No longer a leisurely passtime, but something I wanted gone.
I spent the next 6 months trying (and failing miserably) to quit. I talked to my pastor about it. That got us nowhere. I gave up and gave in for the next two years. Everyday, sometimes multiple times a day.
In the middle of my junior year of highschool I got sick of it again and me and a few frinds started doing accountability. Made alot of progress, relatively speaking, knocked it down to a few times a month for junior year, only only a few times for all of senior year.
Freshman year of college revisited the junior years of highschool, in terms of frequency. Started accountability again at the end of freshman year. Got a filter. Have more or less had no access for the last year and half-ish.
-----------------------------------
K Let's bring it back.
What does any of that have to do with the conversations and situations that night?
I was the most angry I've been in a long time, after seeing and hearing about a handful of examples of guys treating women in ways they didn't deserve to be treated, and the women (for the most part) letting it happen. Then I realized:
7 years of pornography is a ton of women I've mistreated. And not even that. It's a ton of women that had to be mistreated by countless other people in order for there to even be any porn in the first place. It's not just a matter of me consuming, or other people producing, on its own, it's the reality that the consumption SANCTIONS, ENCOURAGES, REQUESTS production (and everything entailed by the production).
That alone made me sad. That's probably an understatement. It's an understatement.
While I really have no concept of how to go about calculating how many women I've affected like this, I just know it's astronomical. But what happened that night was was this:
1)I saw the flippant, careless, attitude the guys carried towards the women after they were "done with them".
2)I saw the brokenness, shame, and helplessness in the eyes of this woman I know in the midst of being treated the way the men had just finished interacting with various other girls.
3)I saw myself in those 6 men.
4)I saw my friend in every woman of those 7 years.
Prior to this, I pretty much new and could tell you any of the above information. But this wasn't about information, or worldview, morality, judgment, any of that.
All the things I knew came together in a way they really haven't ever before as God put actual faces to my sin.
I still don't know what my response is supposed to be. Maybe compassion. Probably. Not quite sure what that would look like though.
I suppose I'm left with a call to continue to seek him, to remember this grace and mercy, and that I do actually need it, and to testify to him among the people from my own life.
A call to remember and believe:
1 Timothy 1:12-17
"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am worst of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the worst, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."
2ish am: I leave my room to shower. The elevator opens behind me, and I hear,
"Oh my God. I'm going to go to jail."
"Don't worry about it. You only have to be 16 in Canada. She's Canadian, right?"
"Oh my God. I'm going to go to jail."
I didn't really recognize the voices off hand so I kept going. As I'm in the shower, the guys come in and start showering too. After a minute or two I can pick out the voices as some folks from my floor that I'm acquainted with, but really don't know and haven't had any sort of legitimate conversation with to this point. The conversation basically repeats itself, and the initial guy sounds pretty worried. The buddy repeats his "Age of consent in Canada" thing. Then they start joking about the whole situation. Initial guy details how the deleted random girl from facebook and changed all his privacy settings so she wouldn't be able to "track him down". Jokes about Chris Hansen's "To Catch A Predator". Jokes about how she was "sucha bitch anyway".
Enter two other gentlemen from my floor to the showers. They enter the conversation and get the scoop from the first two guys. These guys I know a little bit better, though still not very well at all. One of the new guys I new had been doing some seeking, the other, I knew claimed Jesus. The conversation turns away from the hilarious topic of statutory rape to the wonderful world of webcams. The gents start exchanging stories of their recent webcam exploits, and how they've been figuring out the best strategies for tricking the most girls into showing them the most skin.
So I leave. I'm pretty mad. I don't really get angry, but I'm pretty pissed off. As I'm leaving I see two guys that I know aren't from our floor going into two different rooms on the floor with these sly little smirks. Needless to say, these particular rooms aren't men's rooms. Keep heading back towards my room. I pass by one of the girls that lives in one of those rooms. We make eye contact. Face full of guilt. Full of discomfort. She watched me watch random dude go into her room. Stutters a little bit. Stumbles over something to the effect of,
"hmmm..that's interesting...i don't think i've ever seen that guy before...weird..umkwelligottagonowgoodnightbye."
then runs off to her room and closes the door. Now i'm pissed and really sad. Sad because I know this young woman also claims Jesus. Sad because I know some of her struggles with men. Pissed because some random guy is about to take advantage of that then disappear, go back to wherever he lives, and have a conversation about this girl similar to the one those guys had in the bathroom. At this point, i'm like 80% mad. 20% sad.
I get back to my room and I'm kind of at a loss for what my response to the last 20 minutes is supposed to look like. With the gentlemen, I'm acquainted with them enough to where if I saw them face to face they would probably tell me all the details. But I can't seek that out, because there's no way I could share their sentiments on the situation, but at the same time we don't have the depth of relationship where I would have the authority to speak into their lives as anything other than some christian finding something else to condemn them for (at least that's my interpretation of their interpretation). With the woman, we've talked about it all before, her response to me in the hall said enough.
So I sit in my room trying to do the leftover work I have. But really, I'm just sitting there being angry and at a loss for a proper response. Eventually, not looking for a response anymore, just being angry. All the normal, almost cliche questions: Don't they those guys see that the women are real people? Where is the respect? Where is the value? What makes it ok for them to have their way with someone, play tricks and games to get what they want, and then leave, erase the person from their life, and talk crap about them like it doesn't even matter? What if that was your daughter? What if that was your future wife? Would you be ok with someone else treating them like that? For the men that I didn't know at all, it's not cool, but not really surprising I guess, but for the guys that were seeking, it makes sense that they're not finding anything, for the guys that claimed Jesus, I couldn't even really think about that one because it just hurt my brain trying to understand how they could think it was ok on any level. For the woman, why are you letting yourself be taken advantage of? Why can't you see that you're worth more than an hour of stimulation for some random guy? etc. etc. so on and so forth.
This is my initial response to seeing this in a group of maybe...
6 guys (only two of which I was familar with)
mistreating a group of
4 women (mentioned individually, only one of which i was familiar with)
And then it hits me. And then I get really really sad. Like 98% sad and 2% mad.
So what hit me?
REWIND.
-----------------------------------
Beginning of 7th grade I see my first semi-pornographic image. accidentally.
A few weeks later I see my 2nd semi-pornographic image. intentionally.
At the time, I knew it was shady enough to hide, but had no concept of it actually being wrong, or bad, or harmful. Over the next year and a half it gradually worked its way into my list of habits, escalating in frequency, becoming more explicit. Baby steps, sure, but if a baby steps for 18 months, he'll probably go quite a ways, and by the end, he'll just be walking. maybe not the most accurate analogy but you get the point.
The back half of 8th grade, I made that connection, and was pretty alarmed by how progressive of a habit it had become. No longer a leisurely passtime, but something I wanted gone.
I spent the next 6 months trying (and failing miserably) to quit. I talked to my pastor about it. That got us nowhere. I gave up and gave in for the next two years. Everyday, sometimes multiple times a day.
In the middle of my junior year of highschool I got sick of it again and me and a few frinds started doing accountability. Made alot of progress, relatively speaking, knocked it down to a few times a month for junior year, only only a few times for all of senior year.
Freshman year of college revisited the junior years of highschool, in terms of frequency. Started accountability again at the end of freshman year. Got a filter. Have more or less had no access for the last year and half-ish.
-----------------------------------
K Let's bring it back.
What does any of that have to do with the conversations and situations that night?
I was the most angry I've been in a long time, after seeing and hearing about a handful of examples of guys treating women in ways they didn't deserve to be treated, and the women (for the most part) letting it happen. Then I realized:
7 years of pornography is a ton of women I've mistreated. And not even that. It's a ton of women that had to be mistreated by countless other people in order for there to even be any porn in the first place. It's not just a matter of me consuming, or other people producing, on its own, it's the reality that the consumption SANCTIONS, ENCOURAGES, REQUESTS production (and everything entailed by the production).
That alone made me sad. That's probably an understatement. It's an understatement.
While I really have no concept of how to go about calculating how many women I've affected like this, I just know it's astronomical. But what happened that night was was this:
1)I saw the flippant, careless, attitude the guys carried towards the women after they were "done with them".
2)I saw the brokenness, shame, and helplessness in the eyes of this woman I know in the midst of being treated the way the men had just finished interacting with various other girls.
3)I saw myself in those 6 men.
4)I saw my friend in every woman of those 7 years.
Prior to this, I pretty much new and could tell you any of the above information. But this wasn't about information, or worldview, morality, judgment, any of that.
All the things I knew came together in a way they really haven't ever before as God put actual faces to my sin.
I still don't know what my response is supposed to be. Maybe compassion. Probably. Not quite sure what that would look like though.
I suppose I'm left with a call to continue to seek him, to remember this grace and mercy, and that I do actually need it, and to testify to him among the people from my own life.
A call to remember and believe:
1 Timothy 1:12-17
"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am worst of all. Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the worst, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen."
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