Pray For Persecution

Surely this title was a mistake. I meant to write, "Pray for the Persecuted", right? I mean, don't we want to pray that God will remove persecution and protect believers from pain and suffering?The true stories of two persecuted brothers in Christ comes to mind.

Death by Sand Storm

The first story is about a church planter I met several years ago from a highly persecuted North African muslim nation. He was visiting the United States to raise awareness and support for church planting efforts in his region. This brother leads a network of house churches in and around his home country. He is a towering bearded man, standing well over 6 feet tall with the shoulders of an NFL linebacker. His wide smile betrays his deep love for our savior and the joy he finds in serving Him. In order to protect his safety, I'll assign him the name Joshua. I met Joshua in the context of a local church missions committee meeting where the elders of the church had been invited to attend and hear from he and several other church planters and leaders. They each shared in turn about how God is moving among their nation(s). Many of them shared miraculous stories of their own conversions and of how God was drawing people to Himself, often through very difficult persecution. The stories of persecution were heart wrenching to hear first-hand from these brothers. Stories of beatings, inprisonments, family persecution, and evil beyond our comprehension.

After the others had spoken it was now Joshua's turn. He shared how in his country church planters often travelled the 'long way' to get to villages through the dessert in order to avoid checkpoints. Rather than travel in cars via established roads, they would purchase camels and travel through the dessert to reach unreached villages for Jesus. He shared about two of his closest friends who had just that year given their lives in the dessert. A large sand storm arose as they travelled via camel to a remote village bringing the life-giving message of the gospel of Jesus to people who had never before heard. The sand storm overtook them and they were not able to get to the hospital in time to save their lives. He told this story through tears. The persecution is so fierce in his country and in the surrounding countries. It was at this point that Joshua said something I will never forget. He said, 'we pray for persecution because we know that when we are persecuted our testimonies cause the Gospel to grow and spread much more quickly'. He made this statement after fighting back tears as he told the story of his closest friends in Jesus losing their lives to spread the good news. I was dumfounded by what I had heard. Since the telling of that story several years ago, Joshua lost two additional brothers to severe beatings this past year.

Church planters often travelled the 'long way' to get to villages through the dessert in order to avoid checkpoints

Like me, you are probably thinking this is a great story, but surely this sentiment is not shared by others who have endured persecution, right? Believe it or not, I have since been honored to here many such testimonies from brothers and sisters serving in places around the world where they risk persecution on a daily basis. These followers of Jesus all seem to share the same sentiment, often using the exact same words, "We pray for persecution...".

Prisoner In His Own Home

I will share one more story of another friend serving in a completely different part of the world, also under intense persecution. Let's give him the name of Henry. Henry has also committed his life to serving Jesus by leading church planters in some of the hardest to reach places on Earth. He has personally endured persecution and, in fact prior to his conversion was himself prepared to kill those in his own family who had converted to faith in Jesus. His own conversion story is pretty amazing, but that is not the focus of this story.

One of Henry's disciples was leading a house church in her home and led an 18 year old young man to Jesus. The young man began to grow in his faith and continued attending the house church without sharing his new found faith with anyone for fear of persecution. As he grew, he began to have a burden for his own family who, like everyone else in his country were Muslim. They had already began to notice something was different about their son and began to ask him about what had changed. When he finally found the courage to share with his parents about how Jesus had transformed him, they did not take the news well. They viewed this news as a betrayal to the family and believed it brought shame on them. As a result, they held this young man captive in their home for over a year. He endured beatings at the hands of his own family as they brought local imams into the home to try to reconvert him to Islam. Once he was able to borrow a friends cell phone to get a message to the church leaders. He explained that he had gone to the hospital with a broken nose, and several broken ribs and had refused to denounce his faith in Jesus and that he was prepared to lose his life if God willed it. My friend Henry's' chest began to heave as he could not contain his tears while he shared this story. At the time he shared the story, the young man was still in captivity in his parents home and Henry did not know if he was even still alive. Good news: we recently received reports that the young man escaped and is now safe in the home of some of the members of the house church. He is making plans to leave the country to be trained as a church planter himself and desires to return to his own country to continue the work there.

'Henry' sits with the young man recently rescued from the persecution of his family!

Once again, I heard the same words from my brother Henry... 'We pray for persecution'. Imagine the faith... I can only pray, Lord help us in our faith. We know so little of this type of faith in our comfort and in our freedom. We still have the right and the ability to worship freely and yet the average evangelical attends church only twice a month. We are so slow to share our faith. We have absolutely zero price to pay yet we often refuse. Help us Jesus... Might we ever be able to say like our brother and sisters around the world, we pray for persecution in order that Your name might be made known and that You might be glorified among every nation, tribe, people and tongue? Lord help us!!