Be a Hero

We have been assigned some summer reading books at The War College, and the first one was 'Be a Hero' by Wesley Campbell and Stephen Court. We were asked to write a one page summary on our thoughts and give our reflections of the 3rd section.
As promised to one of my sessionmates last night, these are mine...

Be a Hero

At first glance, Be a Hero could easily remind me of the television commercials that I, and the rest of the western world (I’m assuming), can see daily; the ones that we skip over for more entertaining and meaningless products. It was difficult to read, not only by way of reading statistics but also by the sheer grotesque nature of many of the stories. However, had we taken the time to sit and watch more of those telling commercials, these stories may not have had the same impact on me as they do now. Then again, we could have allowed ourselves to watch them and become numb to the sufferings of those children dying of malnutrition or being orphaned by AIDS. Either way, we haven’t been doing what we can or should. After reading, I went back and took a look at some things I had made note of. These are just a few things that I found interesting and the thoughts that went along with them.

“It is almost sacrilege for people in the West to even offer comment on the persecution that Christian brothers and sisters suffer as a regular component of their godly lives…we must ask ourselves how it is that: 1. we aren’t aware of these kinds of things happening in a global village; and, 2. we aren’t already doing something about it?” (p.214) Until a few years ago, I could probably count on one hand the number of times persecution of fellow Christians was brought up in my corps or with my group of friends. And if it was brought up, it was more than likely passed through quickly because who really wants to talk about something so serious?! Really! Why am I not already doing something about it? Good question. I wish that I could answer it with a clean conscience or a true heart, but I cannot. There is no good answer, ever.

"God wants us to experience some of the burden He feels, and to carry some of the pain. The difficulty is crossing over from our comfort to their discomfort…And that took Him to the prisons, hospitals, and the slums.”(p.216) As I first started to think about Jesus as being homeless, I knew right away that I needed to simplify my life as well. Jesus is still working on it with me, though it is something that I believe is not talked about enough in the Church. How can we possibly imitate Christ if we can’t speak His name outside of church? How can we call ourselves Christian for that matter? To experience anything that Jesus experienced we must be out there imitating him and that means being “about His Father’s business.”

Overall, I’m not doing anything near what I should be. Now is the time for me to pray and ask the Lord what my next step will be. Actually, He’s already told me – now is the time for me to be obedient to His word. What was that about it being difficult to cross over from comfort to discomfort? Right, I got it. PTL!

Blessings.