In my hand I held a Decision Magazine published by Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which I had been reading while watching our children play. I'd just been immersed in a heart breaking article on the torture of innocent people whose cruel enemies treated their own followers violently. I'd been thinking of those who currently wield power using fear and murder to seek to satisfy their hunger under evil's influence. This is not God's way. I'd let my mind wander from the picture of two perpetrators to imagine those two men as newborns. I asked myself, What happened to them between that first day of their lives, as precious babies, to this one, where killing is what they choose to do? Were they ever loved?
I read that many of the followers have come from the edges of society throughout the globe where they were frustrated or angry and now suddenly they are strong! The power of violence has gripped them in its drunken rage of destruction. And who suffers from mans' inhumanity to man? The weakest always feel the brunt of the blow! The fragile, the sick, the old and the children; those who can't defend themselves are often Satan's target and we who are strong wring our hands and wonder what to do? Where is God?
Late in the evening, I couldn't shake my hopeless feeling. I'd finished the first step in a lengthy rewrite of a fictional novel I'm working on called The Color of God. I lamented over the idea of writing a book when the world is falling apart around us. "Who cares about a fictional story of an unwilling florist and a dying Christian woman, when real disasters and death are everywhere!" I asked my sweet husband.
"If you can say that," he answered, "then who cares about heart surgery? I help dying people become well. If everything is hopeless why bother? You do the thing God has equipped you to do with excellence and to His glory. We need each other and whatever we've been given to do, we do! You must write and I need to operate and together we will raise this crew."
My husband is wise. We are here to serve in the spaces in which we dwell or along the path on which we are led, God is with us and love is stronger than hate. There is a job to do and a face in front of each of us to love. God gives us the powerful weapon of prayer. As King, He asks His children to care for the widows and orphans, our brothers and our sisters. Do you know what dub means? Dub is defined as: to invest with any name, character, dignity, or title; style; name; call. Perhaps revival is waiting for us to live in the way Jesus asks, following His call to care for the least of these, and to fight against the spiritual forces of darkness. We are to love sacrificially those who are persecuted and those on the edge of choosing evil. We represent King Jesus! He is the way, the truth and the life, those who believe in Him will not perish but have eternal life. We fight for souls of humanity by the power of His love.
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