For the past month or so, both in my personal life (reading and discussions) as well as the life of our church, there has been an emphasis on the persecuted church. We've been showing a VOM video on the church in Vietnam to our youth group on Tuesday evenings. We will have guest speakers from Russia (currently in our ESL program at church) talk to the church about their experience as Christians in Russia. And I just finished reading a book called "The Persecutor" by Sergei Kourdakov - a former Communist Party member who joined the secret police in Russia until God turned his life around.
All of these things have had a big impact on my life - making me stop and think about my own dedication to the Lord. Believers around the world sacrifice their safety (and that of their friends and family!) on a daily basis as they continue to meet together against the wishes of their oppressive governments. The worst thing I face in America is the "discomfort" of sharing with unbelievers who may think I'm a crazy person for believing in God. No comparison. Yet, am I faithful?
Today, I was reading in Matthew 14:22-36 and thinking about all these things... suffering, persecution. In this passage, Jesus walks on the water to meet up with the disciples. At first, they think he's a ghost. Then Peter says, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." The Lord does and lo and behold, Peter starts walking on water, too! That is, until he begins to doubt, at which point he starts sinking and the Lord has to save him.
I got to thinking... in all this talk about persecution and suffering, and in all the comments people make about why God would allow suffering (odd that this comment usually comes from people who are not experiencing real suffering), we don't seem to realize the connection between enduring suffering and experiencing the greatness of God.
Jesus didn't have to walk on the water to get to the disciples. He could have taken a boat and met up with them later (as they most likely supposed he was going to do anyway). Or, he could have walked on the water to them part of the way and then swam the other part while they were watching him so as not to draw attention to himself. But he wanted them to see him, and he wanted to give an opportunity to test Peter's faith. Peter thought his faith was strong (and indeed - we may think the same, having never had the guts to try walking on water ourselves) - but Jesus proved that Peter's faith was not what was keeping him afloat. Yet, the experience was not lost - for how would Peter have had the opportunity to know the power of Jesus, had Jesus not given him a situation in which he could fall? How would Peter know that it was Jesus holding him up... not the strength of his faith?
When trials come into our lives, we're tempted to think they're going to harm us. What we fail to realize (and our Chinese friend expressed as much last night when talking to the youth group about being a Christian in China) is that going through trials helps us experience God's greatness and draws us closer to Him. We get to see him in ways we otherwise wouldn't if we didn't go through hard times.
And yet - we know that there will be no pain or suffering in heaven... so the question could be raised... How will we get to know Him better there?
