Guys, I am so torn on my feelings about ISIS. On one hand, I'm infuriated. How can people be so evil? How can you have such little regard for human life? And then I think about our friend, Ronnie, who had a profound impact on our lives before he was murdered in Libya for being a Christian a little over a year ago. As I was struggling not to hate his killers, I watched his precious wife, Anita, tearfully and sincerely declare on tv interviews that she was praying for his killers and that she forgave them. That she wanted them, yes even them, to encounter God's love. Incredible.
And I read in my Bible about Paul, who was arguably the most influential Christian ever to live, who wrote a large portion of the New Testament. And how did he get his start? He was killing Christians! He threw entire families into prison and oversaw the slaughter of many many people based solely on the fact that they believed in Jesus. That's WHO HE WAS until Jesus intervened in his life and forever changed him to not only believe, but to go on to proclaim God's love to the entire world. Paul was basically ISIS! And God's grace was big enough to reach him. How scandalous!
It is in this perspective that the Bible says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Jesus wasn't just talking about obnoxious coworkers or rude neighbors (like our previous neighbor that hated our kids. She was pretty nasty.) It's talking about those that will persecute you, even kill you, for your faith. So when I hear reports of Christians in these countries praying for the members of ISIS to encounter Jesus and be forever changed, I am incredibly humbled.
I have never personally known persecution in the way that many of these Christians are experiencing. I marvel at their faith and love and ability to endure such things. It causes me to ask God to open my eyes to the world outside of my community, where things are very very different and yet God is doing amazing things in these communities and through these believers. I will join them as they pray for God's love to move forward, even to penetrating the hearts of these killers.
I am not saying we don't fight for what is right or that we don't try to stop evil that is happening. Yes, of course we do! This is what I naturally gravitate toward. DOING something. And we should. But maybe that's why I am so profoundly impacted by the reports from these persecuted Christians calling for us to pray for ISIS. That's not the first thing I think of "doing". But, if you are a Christian, we start first with prayer because we know that God's love is powerful enough to change cold hearts. That he would even save Paul after he killed so many, that he would even save ME when I was far from deserving it. This is the gospel. That God would reach down to love us and save us when we were dead in our sins. And so I will join with our fellow Christian's as they pray for God's love to do something amazing here...
