Contrast

Yesterday I was thinking about the faith-life I have compared to other saints throughout history. I thought of my battles compared to theirs. I thought about the small things that defeat me while they were unmovable in their resolve. I thought with shame about my sense of entitlement to everything going fantastic in this world. Then, like most days I thought about my grandmother.

She was born in 1936 so she ended up living as a child through the awfulness of WW2. Then came communism, and before I go off on a rant about exactly what I think of socialism in all its forms and risk sounding more like a mad person than a child of God, I’ll let the reader (if interested) google about the ‘utopia’ communism was in Romania.

It was a time when Protestant believers met in secret in all kind of obscure places for fear of torture and imprisonment that my grandmother got saved. Not because the idea of Christ helping her here and there was appealing; not for good luck or some misplaced notion of health and happiness but because she was a sinner in need of a Saviour. As a result, everybody shunned her. Even her baptism happened during the night in secret so to not endanger the brother performing the baptism. She got the “lovely stigma” that all born again believers receive in Romania, “pocait” meaning repenter which is a mocking title. But she never looked back. I have so many stories of all she suffered that I’d need to write a book in order to do it justice. Since the moment she knew of my existence, yet unborn, she carried me in her prayers, as she did for all her family. By the time I was old enough to understand, I have learned her prayers by heart. Every morning and every evening she would be in prayer for more than an hour because she needed to petition The Lord on behalf of everyone she knew, friend or foe, and the last 15 minutes or so were for her brotherhood all over the world, the Church of Jesus Christ.

She was entrusted a treasure and she was told to hold on to it and never look back but keep on going and that’s what she did. Tiny, unknown step, after tiny, unknown step. Faithfully keeping her eyes fixed on Jesus and not turning aside either to the right or to the left. And just like her were a great many others, unknown and unseen. Some have died horrible deaths in prisons. Others have lived to tell their tale. Others have died with no one even thinking that their story mattered. People of whom this world was unworthy. But they kept the faith and fought the good fight until the very end.

And then there’s me… If I lost the bus, “Lord, where are You? Why is this happening to me?”. If someone says an unkind word, “Lord, I never want to see them again, how dare they?”. If somehow, I’m unnoticed when it should have been perfectly obvious that I deserved some credit, “Lord, the injustice!”. If I faithfully prayed for a few months for something and there’s no change, on contrary, things got worse, “Lord, do You even hear me? Do You not care that I perish?” …

While I was writing I remembered someone mentioning Richard Cameron’s father. Richard had been martyred in Scotland in 1680. After his executioners cut off his head and hands, they took them to his father who had also been imprisoned for the same cause. In order to torment him even more they showed him his son’s head and hands and asked if he recognized them. The father kissed them and said, “I know — I know them; they are my son's — my own dear son's. It is the Lord — good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me nor mine, but hath made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.” (John Howie, The Scots Worthies, 1781, SWRB reprint, 1997, pp. 428–429).

Those that place their faith in Jesus Christ and look to His sacrifice for their justification, don’t follow Him because they have their wishes come true. They don’t follow because they get some special treatment on earth. They follow because God in His mercy has opened their eyes to see that they are sinners facing a Holy God and nothing they can do on this earth can pay for the offense their sin caused God’s holiness. A guilt that was worthy of death. They follow because they heard that Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God, came to pay with His life the debt of anyone who trusts in Him by faith. They follow Him because He’s worthy.

 “If our hope in Christ is for this life alone, we are to be pitied more than all men.” (1 Corinthians 15:19)

 

“Father, what I do not know, teach me;

What I have not; give me,

What I am not, kindly make me,

For Your Son’s sake. Amen"

Make me a captive, Lord,

And then I shall be free.

Force me to render up my sword

And I shall conqueror be.

I sink in life's alarms

When by myself I stand;

Imprison me within thine arms,

And strong shall be my hand.

 

 My heart is weak and poor

Until it master find;

It has no spring of action sure,

It varies with the wind.

It cannot freely move

Till thou hast wrought its chain;

Enslave it with thy matchless love,

And deathless it shall reign.

 

My pow'r is faint and low

Till I have learned to serve;

It lacks the needed fire to glow,

It lacks the breeze to nerve.

It cannot drive the world

Until itself be driv'n;

Its flag can only be unfurled

When thou shalt breathe from heav'n.

 

My will is not my own

Till thou hast made it thine;

If it would reach a monarch's throne,

It must its crown resign.

It only stands unbent

Amid the clashing strife

When on thy bosom it has leant,

And found in thee its life. (Author: George Matheson 1890) 

by Cristina Pop