The Insanity of God by Nik Ripken: A Book Review

I've been thinking a lot about the persecution of the Church lately. Syria, Iraq, Pastor Saeed Abedini, reports out of North Korea and this book have all combined to illuminate my soul to the undeniable conclusion that evil, persecution of the Church and God's covering mercy are all alive and active in our physical world.

But that's where I keep getting tripped up:  this physical world. 

You see, there is more...so much more than we can ever see or imagine. There are very real spiritual forces of darkness and Light in this world and there is a very real war being waged for which team we will choose to align our souls with. In places I will never see, and in lives I will not know until I meet them in Heaven, there is daily suffering, persecution and death taking place.

All of this begs me to ask the question: Why not here?

Ripken (a pseudonym for the author) asks the same question. I don't want to spoil his conclusion, but I think if we search our hearts and our culture with the discernment of the Holy Spirit, we'll find the same answer.

Why would our Enemy mess with a good thing?

We in the West are asleep to the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and our Enemy knows it. The phrase that keeps coming to mind is waking a sleeping giant. Why would our Enemy, that is perfectly content with our complacency, awaken us to the resurrection power of Christ within us, when he (Satan) can accomplish much more by keep us pacified with our phones, activities, social media, dining out, shopping, and whatever else we spend our time and resources on instead of saving souls for the Kingdom of the One that saved us?

Scary thoughts, right?

Believe me. This book has not been a joy ride...but one I very much needed to remind me of exactly what is at stake. Is it easy to sacrifice? No. Is it comfortable to intercede for others? No. Is it tangibly rewarding to be vulnerable and "different" than others you know. No. Do I care what others think? Yes...far too much.

Here's what I just can not get around:

• I have too much stuff.
• I have too many gifts and talents not being used extensively.
• I have too many friends, neighbors and fellow church-goers that also have not awakened to the God who jealously wants His Holy Spirit to come alive in them.

When Chinese Christians will commit to arising an hour earlier to pray for their Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ whose suffering they view to be even worse than their own imprisonments, how...how can I grimace at the mere thought of losing a little sleep to spend some time in prayer for those I know and love?

What I am about to pray is a very risky thing. I recognize exactly what I am asking and that the only way to achieve it is for trials and sufferings to come. As Ripken points out, "Suffering is one of God's ordained means for the growth of his church." He wisely adds later, "[Believers] know that following Jesus, in so many ways, actually increases suffering instead of lessening it. But they also know that Jesus is better than all the pleasures, possessions, and pursuits of this world put together."

Here is my prayer:

Wake the sleeping giant, Lord! Wake us up! May Your Holy Fire ignite our very souls and the possessions and pastimes with which we have numbed ourselves fall away and pale in comparison with the joy of abiding in Your Presence.

Do you long to be fully alive to the Spirit? Do you believe, as Augustine is credited with saying, "The glory of God is man fully alive"? Do you desire a closeness with the Spirit that is indescribable?

Awaken and arise to the One that is miraculously at work in our world. Embrace the sufferings of His servants as our own and delight in nothing more than Him.

I'm ready. I want so much more than this culture has convinced me I should be content with. Don't you?

How Long, O Lord?

Contemplating the state of things around the world, I could very quickly become depressed. The persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq has been weighing heavily upon me. I feel bombarded and inundated with not only this grievous situation, but I know too many people struggling with cancer, chemo, Alzheimer's, divisive families and the derision from ex-spouses.

God is giving me a new-to-me perspective toward the persecution of His holy ones...His saints. Thanks to books like A Passport Through Darkeness, Captive in Iran and The Insanity of God, which I am currently reading, my eyes have not only been opened to what my brothers and sisters in Christ are facing daily...but God's Spirit is opening up a whole new prayer-world to me interceding for them when I see the news reports or He brings a person or place to mind.

Over the last several days as the horrendous reports of beheadings, torture and starvation of children and adults alike have been coming out of Iraq, there is one phrase that has been churning over and over again in my mind...

"How long, O Lord? How long?"

I knew this was found in the book of Revelation, but it took me a couple of days to locate it exactly. I wanted to read the context of this verse before I wrote this post. Somehow I knew when I read the passage, God's Spirit would provide peace for my questions. Do I have an answer to the burning question, How long?

Not exactly. But here's what I found:

"When the Lamb (Jesus) broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also." (Revelation 6:9-11)

I am not a seminary-trained Bible scholar. I will not pretend to understand seals, trumpets, signs vs. poetry or any other debate this could devolve into. But, here's what I know based on this passage:

• There are a certain number of faithful Jesus followers who will lose their lives for maintaining their faith in Christ.
• Thus, as long as there are still people dying for the Name of Jesus, that number has not yet been fulfilled.
• One day, the number will be reached.
• Those who have already died for their faith, have been given a white robe and told that for now, they can rest from their toil.
• One day, the spilling of their blood will be judged and avenged.

Why does this bring me some measure of comfort? Because I know that one day all of this will end. I also know that when I see the lifeless body of a decapitated child or a group of dead children who fled into the mountains without food or water...their purified souls have been told to "rest for a little while longer". Their toil, sadness, suffering and despair are over.

Not only does the thought of their rest bring peace to my soul and praise for God to my lips, such sacrifice puts into very harsh perspective my "need" to run to the grocery store just because I don't have the type of salad dressing I want on hand.

Ouch.

I will say it again and again until every fiber of my being gets the Message...

It is time for hard and holy things!

The "Hard and Holy Things"

I do not regularly read Ann Voskamp's blog, but today as I was flipping through Twitter, blogs and anything I could find to try to make sense of what is happening in Mosul, Iraq, I came across this quote by her, 

"...because the world has enough women who know how to do their hair--the world needs women to do hard and holy things."--Ann Voskamp

I know nothing about this quote, other than as it was Tweeted. What I do know is that for some time, God's Holy Spirit has been drawing me toward these "hard and holy things", and because of fear (being "different"; perceived as "radical"; what comfort I may be asked to give up), I have not been listening. He and I have been working through this though and the post you are currently reading is a nudging from Him that this is a "hard and holy thing".

With great effort I attempt to keep myself from political commentary. I believe God needs no earthly kingdom to accomplish the work of His Kingdom. When I speak out against the treatment of the marginalized of our society, it is because He has laid the message on my soul. I am not a mouthpiece for any political agenda. Even when I write book or movie reviews, discuss gardening or the latest locally owned business we've found, it's because I truly want us to get back to becoming the people God created us to be. 

I look for Him in everything.

I would love to only share with you my latest recipe or my new favorite book. That's the easy stuff. But the cold, stark reality is that we live in an evil world, controlled by the "ruler of the kingdom of the air." (see Ephesians 2:2) This Enemy is feverishly attempting to eradicate God's people...God's Kingdom. I am recognizing that as I often say to my children, "Time's a-wastin'!"...because it is. Thus, I can bury my head in the sand no longer. It is time to do "hard and holy things".

When I search Twitter with the hashtag #IraqiChristians and I'm confronted with the gruesome reality of beheaded children, heads impaled on stakes and my crucified brothers and sisters of the Kingdom and children who died without food and water because they fled into the mountains...it is time to do "hard and holy things". 

When I do a Google search to try to understand why the Arabic letter above is being used to express solidarity with my Christian family in Iraq, I learn that Christian businesses and homes are being painted with a red "noon", which is the 14th letter of the Arabic alphabet and it is the equivalent of our Roman letter N. But it is used because it stands for Nasara or Nazarenes...an Arabic word for Christian...I weep because having grown up in "The Church of the Nazarene", I fully grasp perhaps for the first time the label of Nazarene. [source found here] To be a Nazarene is to embrace the "hard and holy things".

We have stood by and watched as Rwanda, Bosnia, Congo/Sudan, Syria and now Iraq have seen their peoples shredded through the tyranny of evil. It is time for "hard and holy things".

There is a voice inside of me that calmly attempts to assuage my passion with words like, "it is to be expected"; "we are in the last days"; "it will get worse before it gets better"; and the ultimate justification for malaise, "but what can I do?"

But the Voice that calls me to diligently seek His Kingdom urges me to "hard and holy things". 

So what can I do? 

I can speak out. I can use the letter "noon" to show my solidarity with my Christian family. I can embrace that I do have a voice, even though my Enemy would have me believe no one will listen.

But...

There is One who listens, and when we pray, all of Heaven is silent for half an hour! Eugene Peterson writes that my prayers return to Earth with Reversed Thunder. "Prayer reenters history with incalculable effects. Our earth is shaken daily by it." (Peterson)

Pray. Protest. Pray. Petition. Pray. Promote Truth. Pray.

It may not seem like much to my human way of thinking, but each of these causes ripples and waves that last throughout all eternity, and my Enemy will continue to draw the battlelines against them. 

Battle.

Not something I look forward to, but..."the world needs women to do hard and holy things."

When Christmas Is Deadly

Normally, I wait until I finish a book before I write a review of it...so this isn't a review, but a perfectly timed opportunity for me to bring to light something I just learned in a book. The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution taught me something about which I was unaware, having spent most of my last three years sequestered in my white-bred Western isolationist culture: There are Christians around the world that are systematically attacked at Christmas services each year.

Granted, I don't watch a lot of U.S. news because the corporate propaganda that calls itself "news" infuriates me, but why is no one in our churches calling attention to this? I'll have more about the book in a review when I've finished it, but for now, I simply wanted to ask believers around the world to pray for fellow believers around the world who will be persecuted in this season that should be filled with happiness, joy and wonder.

If you'd like the details, here's what author John L. Allen, Jr. has shared: "For the the record, 2012 marked the third consecutive year that Boko Haram launched a bloody wave of attacks on Christians during the Christmas season." (p. 59)

Boko Haram is a "jihadist militant organization founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2001" in Nigeria. Lest we think too poorly of the Muslim community of Nigeria, they too have suffered losses when suicide bombers have been denied through gated entry points to churches. One such occurrence on Christmas Day 2011, during a "coordinated series of assaults...which left at least fifty people dead and hundreds injured," took place in "Madalla, a satellite town on the outskirts of the national capital, Abuja, where a bomb went off outside St. Theresa's Catholic church that killed forty-four and left an additional eighty people injured, including both Muslim bystanders and Catholics exiting the Christmas mass, which had just ended when the blast occurred." (pp. 56-57)

People of other faiths have recognized these acts as targeted persecution of Christians. "The Simon Wiesenthal Center, among the world's leading Jewish human rights organizations, urged the United States and the European Union to do more to protect embattled Christians around the globe: "As Jews, we recognize all too well when those who want to beat down a group add humiliation and contempt to their murderous violence" it said in a December 28 statement. "Picking Christmas Day to murder women and children on the steps of their church was calculated to intimidate all other Nigerian Christians.'" (p. 57) Yet, I do not ever recall hearing any mention of this among any local congregations, nor in any U.S. media to which I have access.

I'm not trying to be all "gloom and doom" at Christmastime. I simply see a lot of "concerned Christians" getting very excited (as they do every year) about Nativity scenes in public areas, Christian Christmas carols not being played in stores and the coup de grace, cashiers being forced to wish "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Maybe this year, instead of becoming incensed the next time someone unintentionally offends us...we could, instead...whisper a prayer of protection and God's Presence for our brothers and sisters around the world who risk their very lives by being Christians on Christmas Day.

Sort of puts all of the shopping and other nonsense in perspective, doesn't it?