| | It seems this week God has been teaching us to be bold. Sometimes the phrase "being bold for Christ" can imply rudeness or insensitivity, synonymous with "Bible-thumping." That's not what I mean.
It's more like boldness in prayer. Boldness in showing and sharing Christ's love. Boldness in encouraging others. Boldness in believing that Jesus transforms lives.
Part of this new attitude stems from reading the astonishing biography of Brother Yun, a leader from among the house church movement in China. He tells of incredible stuff like divine healings, visions, miraculous escapes from prison, etc. When he was 16 he memorized the entire book of Matthew in 28 days, then recited it in his first "sermon," only to see the congregation turn towards God in repentence.
His story would be hard to believe except for the numerous witnesses who corroborate the events. And for the fact that his life bears a consistent witness. When he meets a Catholic priest in prison, he doesn't try to "convert" him to evangelicalism, but rather treats him as a brother. He openly talks about his failures. He combines passion for sharing the good news and compassion for those who suffer.
Reading his story has made me tired of being timid.
Tuesday a youth group member who also attends the Colegio was visibly having a rough day. We have a good friendship with her, and so we asked her what was wrong. She said she felt worthless and that no one loved her. As we listened and tried to encourage her, she revealed that she was hearing voices that were telling her these things. We began to pray for her and the immediate physical reaction in her convinced us we were dealing with something more than just low self-esteem. She got a wild-eyed, desperate look in her eyes, and said her chest hurt. She pleaded with us to tell the voices to be quiet. So we did. She still seemed to be struggling, so we took her to the church where Pastor Martin was working in his office. We joined together in prayer for the young woman, and eventually the voices left her and she felt better.
Thursday she came to me at school and said she wanted to talk to Martin. I told her he was in Bogota, and asked what it was about. She said the voices had come back the previous night, and her parents wanted Martin to pray for her and her family. I told her that he would probably be glad to do that when he got back the next day, but that she could do some things in the meantime to fight these voices on her own. I asked her if she truly believed she had accepted Jesus as her savior and committed her life to him. She said she did. So I told her that as a believer Jesus had given her authority to renounce any satanic powers or voices that tried to attack her. I shared some of my own similar experiences from when I was a teenager. I suggested that she use the Word of God as Jesus did when Satan tempted him. Finally I wrote down a few verses for her to meditate on that affirmed her identity in Christ and Jesus' power over any satanic force.
The next day when I saw her she seemed her usual cheerful self. I asked her how things had gone the night before, and she said she had been just fine. She had been reading the verses I had given her and that really made her feel better.
Just in case you were wondering, we are not "Frank Peretti" Christians who see demons behind every corner, responsible for any bad thing that happens to us. We know there is such a thing as mental illness, and that psychological disorders are not simply reducible to demonic possession.
And yet we can't deny what we experienced. It was precisely when Laura began to pray silently for the girl that she began to talk about her chest hurting. She didn't even know Laura was praying for her! And I can truly say that I had no fear in praying for her and commanding the voices to be quiet. Or in giving her advice about what to do if the voices came back. It wasn't about having some power trip or some spiritual experience. It was about loving this young person and desiring to see her made whole.
I'm praying that God will continue to give us boldness to share Christ's love with hurting people. In the end, we've really got nothing to lose. And so much to gain.
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| | Posted 10/22/2006 11:31 PM - 56 Views - 4 eProps - 3 comments
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