How to live if you are an Afghan Christian

August 24, 2021

Maria Acts 20, Fear, Matthew 26, Persecution, Psalm 31, Romans 8 , , Leave a comment

As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” Romans 8:36 NIV

Followers of Christ in Afghanistan these days live with terror. All Afghanis must feel threatened, especially those who desperately want to flee Kabul.  But to be Christian in Afghanistan these days is to have a bulls-eye painted on your back with neon colors. As in other countries where believers are persecuted, neighbors know just who has accepted Christ and left the majority religious community, whether Islamic, Buddhist or Hindu.

Each morning as I read reports from Open Doors or hear the news, I try to imagine how I would feel. Just how I would deal with the pressure of impending death at the hands of the Taliban? How I would live with the fear that comes simply from being Christian in Afghanistan?

You’d have to live as though you were already dead!

That’s the only way I can think to reduce the tension, live with the stress.  Whether actual death comes today or tomorrow or next week, soon you’ll be with Jesus.  With that mindset, that you’re as good as dead, you’d have nothing to lose by helping other Christians, of spending yourself for neighbors, of even telling your executioners about Jesus.

We Christians SAY we believe that God sovereignly plans our birth and our death and everything in between, but I can’t say that I live that way, functionally.  I know I hold ‘my plans’ too tightly.

This morning I lingered over Psalm 31.  Verse 15 fit my reflections about the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban.  “My times are in your hands…” NIV. I’ve read that the Hebrew word for ‘times’ can also refer to events or seasons.

Jesus knew this dual reality.  He considered himself dead to the world, and alive to his father.  How else can we explain his calm warmth during that last supper, the very night he was betrayed? Psalm 31: 5 proclaims, “Into your hands I commit my spirit” NIV.  Jesus gasped out these very words from the cross (Luke 23:46). And Stephen who was martyred likewise committed his spirit to Jesus.

I’m asking myself, “Maria, how would your life change if you gave back each day to the Lord, leaving it for him to do what he has planned.  Paul mentions, ‘not counting his life dear’ (Acts 20:24).

I’m not ‘there’ yet.  But thinking about the persecuted church, and especially Afghani brothers and sisters right now, challenges me.  And that is good.

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. Matthew 16:25 NLT

Is God behind all this global suffering?

June 7, 2020

Maria Deuteronomy 15, God's will, Isaiah 46, Philippians 4, Poverty, Salvation, Sovereignty of God, Struggles, suffering, Thinking, Thoughts, Trials, Trusting God , , , , , Leave a comment

News agencies world wide report droughts, floods, murders, homelessness, job loss, disease and more.

Christian organizations such as Open Doors post pleas for prayer:

  • Unprotected, Christians murdered in Nigeria
  • West Africans suffering from Fulani, sickness and little food
  • Locusts in East Africa destroy crops
  • Daily assaults on Christians in Asian country

Is all this suffering from God’s hand?

I am a Christian who believes that the Bible is the true word of God. I thus accept as fact what God teaches, that nothing happens outside His sovereign will. (some thoughts about ‘two wills’ of God)

Isaiah 46:9-10  I am God, and there is no other;
    I am God, and there is none like me.
 I make known the end from the beginning,
    from ancient times, what is still to come.
I say, ‘My purpose will stand,
    and I will do all that I please.

I am thinking, thinking a lot these days and reasoning from what I know, from what God says in His Word. He doesn’t answer all my questions, but there is enough truth for me to ponder and think clearly.  He expects me, as one of His, to apply my mind. ‘Think on these things’, Paul exhorts in Phil 4:8.

I know that all that has befallen me in my 6 decades: the bad, the painful, the shameful, the sicknesses, the sin, the blessings, the rescues, the deliverances, the joys, the ‘pleasants’….all have been planned for my good, to bring me to Jesus (rescuing me from the right judgement of my guilt and fair eternal penalty) and to make me holy like Him.  If God is God and if He is good, wise, all-powerful, faithful and loving, then He has good reason, good purposes for what He does.  Whether I see His reasons. Whether I agree with them or not.

I don’t struggle with that anymore IN MY OWN LIFE. 

But recently I’ve been thinking those who are REALLY suffering in the world, in what we call the 3rd-world areas. (Is there a ‘second-world’ label??)

My pain and struggles have been those of an advantaged American born in the second half of the 20th century.  Past and present – far more people have been and are overcome by poverty, hopelessness, violence, hunger, sickness, disastrous weather and terrorism.  Does God work all those imagination-defying ‘awfuls’ to bring SOME to Christ and make THEM more like Jesus? Are these conditions His tailored will for their lives, just as my circumstances are for me?

That is what I have been wondering.  And it’s a new idea for me.

Not for a moment do I think this is merely an intellectual exercise, that God intends for me just to ponder logically when I read of 3rd-world suffering.   Why not? Because all through the Bible, God’s people are commanded to take care of and provide for the down-and-out in our reach.

  • Deut 15:11 For there will never cease to be poor in the land; that is why I am commanding you to open wide your hand to your brother and to the poor and needy in your land.

In just the week that this topic has been on my mind, my conclusion is that somehow, in God’s wisdom, those who are His, those whom He is calling from each people group, He has placed in the designed location, time and circumstances best suited for their hearing and responding to the Gospel.  No, He doesn’t condone violence and oppression of the poor. But He does ordain what is at the ‘moment’ an evil for a greater good since He KNOWS has PLANNED and will bring about the eventual outcome. All through the Bible we read that His hand is behind droughts (think Naomi and Ruth), slavery (Joseph to Egypt) leprosy (Naaman), murder plots (Esther and the Jews), imprisonment (Paul and the Philippian jailor).

I choose to hold fast to what I know is true about our God.  I have learned that He is trustworthy.  I don’t have to understand or see His reasons to accept that what breaks my heart will one day be the cause of my praise for the resulting beauty of his Grace revealed.

In the meantime, may He keep my heart soft both to call on Him for justice and relief and to be part of His provision.

%d bloggers like this: