6In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,7that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ,8whom having not seen you love...
Trials come and we face circumstances that could crush us, if we allow them - but in God's purposes, our difficulties can be tools used in His skillful hands to strengthen us and cause us to grow in Him. If we adopt an attitude of rejoicing - no matter what - we find that our perspective changes and we have a greater appreciation of the presence of God with us.
+++++
We are continuing our 25-Day Spiritual Adventure, as we continue to look at the response of the shepherds to the news of Jesus' birth. In Luke 2:20, we see:
20Then the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told them.
This is great encouragement for us. When we have an experience with God, we recognize that while the internals may have changed, we still have to live in the same world - the shepherds "returned," which means, I assume, they returned to their fields and their occupation of tending to their flocks. But, their hearts were full of praise to God.
We can process how a deepening of our walk with God affects the way that we respond to the externals - how an experience with the Lord can affect how we relate to our families, our workplace, our service in the church, and every arena of life.
And, we can be challenged to shine the light of Christ even in the darkest of times. The people of Sierra Leone are facing that during this Christmas season. According to a piece on the ChristianityToday.com website, the government has just banned public gatherings that celebrate Christmas and New Years amid anxiety about the spread of the deadly disease known as Ebola.
In a Sunday address, President Ernest Bai Koroma stated, “Ebola is hitting us very hard because we are a very close-knit society." He added, "We are in very close proximity to each other, we can reach each other's towns and villages in record time; our relatives are everywhere seeking jobs, businesses and other opportunities. That is why a tragedy anywhere in Sierra Leone is a tragedy everywhere in this country."
Sierra Leone currently has the highest number of cases of Ebola. Since the outbreak began, it has suffered more than 8,000 cases and roughly 1,900 deaths, reports the BBC.
Victor Zizer, a Sierra Leone theologian supported by ScholarLeaders International, a John Stott-related ministry, talked about how Ebola will make this year an "atypical commemoration":
Christmas in Sierra Leone will be very different this year. The ravaging effect of the Ebola outbreak has created a very unfriendly and unwelcoming environment. Whole areas have been quarantined to limit peoples’ movement. Friends and relatives outside of Sierra Leone who plan their annual visits around this period have all been scared off. As the Ebola disease continues to rear its deadly head in defiance to all efforts to mitigate it, claiming lives, with the rate of new infection soaring over 500 per week, we see a murky picture of Christmas in 2014.
The only consolation comes as Sierra Leoneans reflect on what Christ’s birth, and His coming into the world – (to Africa especially) means for us even in our kind of scenario. In the context of Mk. 1:30, we see Jesus visiting the home of one of His disciples, Simon Peter, where he was told of Peter’s sick mother in-law. Finding the woman, he healed her and she “began to wait on [serve] them.” His healing of her also became an occasion for many more healing and deliverance miracles to be performed in the lives of other sick and oppressed people; thus, His visit to Peter’s family became a blessing to many more.Kim Kargbo, the founder of Women of Hope, a ministry working with disabled women in Sierra Leone, told Christianity Today: “It’s hard to know what to do in this complex situation. How to work around the risks and regulations that hamper the ability to work? The church in Sierra Leone is small. But what if it were mobilized to act? The goal would be to get each believer thinking about his or her biblical responsibility in this crisis.”
The shepherds were challenged to take their sense of euphoria over hearing the message and meeting the baby Jesus back into their circumstances. In Sierra Leone, only 10 percent of the 5.7 million people are Christians. 60 percent are Muslim. But the question that Ms. Kargbo asks is a pertinent one, about the church, "what if it were mobilized to act?"
A question for us this day, and each day, is how to incorporate our relationship with Christ and our rejoicing in Him into the circumstances we face. God has saved us and is sanctifying us so that we certainly can come to know Him better, but He is also directing us to do His will. He is setting us apart to use us for His glory, to make Him famous, and to spread the news of His name.
In Sierra Leone, there is danger of Christmas being cancelled, on the surface. But, in the hearts of His people, the Spirit of Christ will always live. And, when we face the dangers of this world, we can turn to the Prince of Peace and reflect on the hope that He can give.
No comments:
Post a Comment