I was moved to think about perseverance today. I was reading on Open Door Ministries website about persecuted believers in other countries and the struggles they face and then thought about my life and what I face. Why is perseverance so hard to be content within?
I mean my life does not have the same struggles as the lives of those others I read about. People beaten because they were accused (not convicted) of sharing their faith, escaping only because they "played dead." A Christian nurse gang raped IN THE HOSPITAL BY A DOCTOR because of her faith and then THROWN OUT THE WINDOW THE FOURTH FLOOR to keep her from telling her tale. House churches attacked by police, by gangs of youth riled up by media, the media encouraging people to attack Christians. Pastors shot down as they leave churches because they have success converting Muslims to Christianity. (To read more, go to the Open Doors Ministry's Frontline News)
And I... I face not having all the things I want or not doing all the things I want to do or not being able to provide for a life style that is extravagant when compared to most of the rest of the world. I face people who don't want to talk about Christianity - the worst response they could have would be to tell me to shut up and walk away. I face petty struggles in relationships that won't ever mean life or death to me but just cause small wounds to my heart - nothing that God can't heal in time. Persevering in cleaning - kinda a joke, but something that I am not good at even so. All my life's struggles seem so small.
I just read about one girl who is being bullied by a Muslim guy in her neighborhood - he's harassing her, joking about marrying her and leaving the country and then converting her. As she rejects him, he could become bitter and then spread rumors that they have been in relationship with each other. Mind you the guy is telling her of his "exploits" with other girlfriends so what might he say about her. In their community it would be the death of her reputation and depending on where she lives, perhaps the death of her - i don't know if they stone people for adultery but maybe, or she could be forced to marry him and who knows what he would do to her then, or she could be shunned by all and expelled from the college because of the rampant rumors...mind you I don't know about these things because they are from my imagination but who knows what could happen in foreign countries in Muslim areas.
And I'm struggling to persevere in daily household tasks just because I don't want to do the work and it seems endless?!? - hardly a big deal but it makes me wonder how little character I actually have if I find it hard to persevere in such little things.
Or perhaps part of Satan's game is to distort our perspective and make it hard for us to see the forest for the trees. I mean if he can make the small things in my life seem so awful and make it so I think I can't survive then how can I survive the big things right? Or at least maybe that's what he wants me to think. Perhaps the harder and larger task that takes much to persevere in is to go through life with a servants attitude unruffled by the small things that might seem so great...basically to live like a little child who can easily get over the bumps in the road with the perspective of a grandma who knows what matters in the long run rather than to live life like a teenager always in some sort of hysteria over some kind of drama. Perhaps that is the real struggle that I am in the midst of and when you change your attitude about what really matters you produce character and what it takes to persevere changes dynamically. No longer does it take all you have to do something, but it just takes a bit of time and perspective to realize that it is not such an awful thing to get it done or live through it.
Maybe that's what it's like living with a heavenly perspective. When you view life with mind set upon things about, everything else seems so small. What is a day or a year in which you struggle to survive when you know that you will spend eternity theoretically in the lap of luxury surrounded by all the things that really matter. And perhaps that's why perseverance and character end in hope - a hope that we know does not disappoint because our hope is set on Jesus Christ and the promises He made to us that this world will fall away and He will collect us to join Him at the banquet table of His Heavenly Father.
No comments:
Post a Comment