loving God in tragedy

A friend of mine emailed this little story a while ago. I wept when I first read it. It's about the devotion of Sudanese women to Jesus in the midst of horrible, unimaginable suffering:

Baroness Caroline Cox has been described as "the Mother Teresa of the war-torn poor."  A nurse, scientist, and deputy speaker of Britain's House of Lords, she has, to many of the world's helpless, become "love in action" in human form and a powerful voice on behalf of the forgotten.

When asked to relate both her worst moment and her best during all her journeys of mercy.  The worst was entering a Dinka village after Sudanese government-backed soldiers had left, laden with human loot.

The stench of death was overpowering.  More than a hundred corpses lay where they had been savagely butchered.  Men, women, children, even cattle, had been cut down or herded into captivity to be carried north as slaves.  Straw huts were ablaze, crops had been razed, and devastation and death confronted the eyes everywhere.  Worst of all was the knowledge that the militia would return with their gunships and rifles, and the area's villages would once again lie naked before the ferocity and bloodlust of the Muslim fundamentalists form the North. "Genocide is an overworked word," Lady Cox said, "and one I never use without meaning it.  But I mean it."

And her best moment?  It came, she said, right after the worst.  With the raiders gone and the results of their cruelty all around, the few women still alive - husbands slain, children kidnapped into slavery, homes ruined, and they themselves brutally raped - were pulling themselves together.  Their first instinctive act was to make tiny crosses out of sticks lying on the ground and to push them into the earth.

What were they doing?  Fashioning instant memorials to those they had lost?  No, Lady Cox explained. The crudely formed crosses were not grave markers, but symbols.  The rossed sticks, pressed into the ground at the moment when their bodies reeled and their hearts bled, were acts of faith.  As followers of Jesus of Nazareth in the Horn of Africa, they served a God whom they believed knew pain as they knew pain.  Blinded by pain and grief themselves, horribly aware that the world would neither know nor care about their plight, they still staked their lives on the conviction that there was one who knew and cared.  They were not alone.

intercession = crucifixion

first of all, i made it to ihop, kansas city! and i love it. the prayer room is amazing. i strongly encourage everyone to come here for a season, whether it be a month or 2 years. it's incredible what spending hours a day in focused prayer will do for your heart.

i was in the prayer room during intercession today, and the worship team was singing a song that goes, "Great Intercessor, always living to intercede. Why are You crying, heavily sighing, share Your heart with me." i got the revelation that intercession crucifixion go hand in hand. Intercession is the act of laying down your life, being crucified and dying. The ultimate intercession was Jesus hanging between heaven and earth, reconciling the 2 worlds. His plea "Father, I desire that they would be with Me where I am" cost Him His life, a price He was glad to pay. And so, when He tells us to take up our cross, part of what this means is to become an intercessor and partner with Him in His act of intercession. To lay down our burdens and take up His IS to tarry with Him, as even now He is our Great High Priest ever living to intercede (Hebrews 7). Prayer is the act of reconciling men to God, as Jesus did on the cross. So when we pray, we are entering into His burden and becoming crucified with Christ - dying to ourselves, our ambitions, and caring about another...stretching out our hands to heaven and saying "God, save their soul."

spirit of criticism

when i first came to the house of prayer, God sternly convicted me about the spirit of criticism. i realized how judgmental i am, critical, easily perceiving fault in others and viewing them through the lens of their weaknesses and issues versus through the eyes of Jesus. i realized how i do not bridle my tongue, and the tongue is a small member but steers the whole body, and is set on fire by hell (James 3), so it is so important to learn to restrain yourself, to not speak evil, complain, speak negatively. this pollutes your heart and clouds your discernment. since this initial realization, i've been fighting against this spirit and wrestling to get this criticism out of me. i've asked God to purify my heart, to convict me the moment i think/say a critical thought/word, to give me His heart and help me see through His eyes. God truly is able to change our hearts, because i have noticed my heart slowly transforming, where i am truly beginning to see people as Jesus sees them - with all their issues, He says they're lovely. as i've been awakened to my own critical spirit, i've become sensitive to it and aware of it around me. i've realized how much of our conversation (i'm talking about Christians talking to Christians) is completely unedifying to the Body and saturated with criticism and disdain. how we criticize this church or that church, point out the flaws in this person, pick that person apart. this is what the Bible calls "evil speaking". if we are the Body of Christ, and each person a different member, then doing this is liken to me taking a knife and just slashing my leg or my arm constantly, or gouging my eye out. graphic, i know, but that's the truth. i would never do that to my body. so why do we as His Body do that to ourselves? anything you say that does not build the Body does not contribute to the increase of His Kingdom. it hinders it, slows it down, even tears it down and destroys the work of God among us.

someone at IHOP (i forget who now) had an encounter in the spirit where they went to heaven and met Enoch, the man who walked with God and was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:24). this person asked Enoch, "How do you walk so near to God that you don't die, you just get taken away?" Enoch's response is so riveting and convicting that it doesn't matter if you don't believe this happened, you can't deny the validity of his statement. Enoch said, "When you learn to not hurt people with your words or with your thoughts, you will walk in God's presence." WHOA! That is one of the most simple yet profound statements i have ever heard, and i think about it every day.

God sees people through the blood of the Son, that means fully cleansed, 100% pure. not to say that He doesn't see their faults and weaknesses. He knows these better than anyone, and is constantly putting men through fire and discipline to purify them. but when He sees the faults, He says, "That's not who you are. All fair you are my darling; there is no flaw in you" (Song of Songs 4:7). this is how He views EVERY believer. no matter what you think about the church next door, THIS is how Jesus views that church. and this is what it means to see through His eyes. if you don't see other Christians, churches, ministries in this way, you do not have His heart, and you do not see as He sees. (of course there's a place for correction and rebuke, i'm not talking about that. i'm talking about criticism). back to Enoch's statement - we want God's presence, to be near Him, but there is a huge role we play in this reality. we decide how close we want to be, and a big part of this is having a pure heart. and a big part of having a pure heart is taking very practical steps to loving people: When you think a negative thought...#1) don't say it, #2) repent for it and ask God to change your heart, #3) purposely and verbally say 3 positive things about that person, #4) thank God for that person/church. that's the essence of it.

this is what God is doing in me, wanted to share with everyone and hopefully inspire :)