The Spirit Equips Us to Suffer in Doing God's Work

(Mark 1:7-13)
As a young Christian, 1witnessed in sorne situations in which suffering
was likely. Two weeks in a row 1had led sorneone to Christ on Sunday night
in a particular part of town; the third week 1decided to try it again. Unfortunatelv,
the first person 1spoke to was not in a pleasant mood: he descended
on me immediatelv with anger, pummeling me with his fists and kicking
me. 1 managed to get away, with him cursing that he would kill me if he
saw me again. On sorne occasions when 1 was beaten, the physical pain
remained for several days after the beating. Once, however, the Lord mercifu11y
caused me to feel nothing, though my ha ir was being torn out and
my head was being slammed repeatedly against the floor.
1 have not found such occurrences ro be commonplace in the United
States, but my friends in other parts of the world have recounted more
examples. One Nigerian professor told me that he had been on Campus
Crusade staff during sorne extremist Islamic riots a decade ago. Although
the riots appeared ro be spontaneous, the radical Muslims had, in fact,
mapped out where a11 the Christian ministers in that town lived. They went
to one house after another, murdering the ministers and their families. My
friend and his wife huddled beneath atable with their baby as rocks were
thrown through their windows. They escaped death only because a moderate
Muslim neighbor with whorn mv friend had shared Christ went out
and in Arahic insisted that this was a "house of peace." More recently, close
Nigerian friends of mine lost ministry co11eagues anJ relatives as hundreJs
of people werc massacrcJ (on both sides of the ensuing conflict). ArounJ
the world, thousands of Christians are martyred every year, anJ events in
Columhine High School and elsewhere indicate that such events may
hecome increasingly common here