Cover Photo: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/17/world/taliban-afghanistan-news

The tragedy unfolding for the underground Church in Afghanistan is a stark reminder to put your understanding of persecution in perspective. Most people of Western Judeo-Christian origin have never truly known it. Including myself. I pray that we never will. The crisis in Afghanistan is not ammunition for your political ramblings. It is a human tragedy that calls us to unite as a people of God, to pray fervently, and to mourn.

Take this time to pray for your brothers and sisters in Christ, whom you will never meet in this life, who are being persecuted on a level that we will never understand; who understand first hand what it means to take up the cross of Jesus; who are bent on seeing their current suffering through to the reward that awaits them in heaven.

I do not know why the cost of following Jesus is relatively small for some, and for others it is their very lives. To be frank, there is a measure of guilt that I feel for the privilege I have and the safety that I have come to take for granted.

There is a level of doubt in my heart over whether I would be able to stand for my faith in the face of imminent death.

Part of me asks, why them and not me?

Another part of me asks why God allows his people to suffer in the first place. (Theology and apologetics aren’t very comforting to that part of me.)

I think God just wants us to grieve with him today. So this blog post is for me. It’s my way of grieving.

I am grieving today for the senseless violence, hatred, and human rights violations being perpetrated right now around the world – not only against Christians, but against all persecuted people of all faiths.

I am rejoicing today that the gospel of Jesus has so deeply penetrated the hearts and minds of my brothers and sisters in Afghanistan. I am rejoicing because whatever fate awaits them, their reward in heaven will be unfathomably greater. I am praying, with confidence in my heart, that God will move in miraculous ways through his Church in the Middle East.

“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.”

Revelation 22:20-21