I recently read Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s classic novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
. It honestly wasn’t an enjoyable read (then again, I don’t think it was supposed to be), but Solzhenitsyn is considered such a great thinker, I had to give it a shot.He paints a pretty convincing portrait of the bleak life of a prisoner in a 1950s-era Siberian work camp in the Soviet Union. It’s freezing cold. The food they’re offered is unappetizing, to say the least. The most striking aspect of the novel, though, is Ivan’s attitude. More than once, he says something like, “This is the good life!” when he gets an extra hunk of bread or bowl of mush. And he takes pride in his work, even though he will get absolutely no benefit from it – just more mistreatment from the guards.
But the thing that hit home with me the most was a passage near the end of the book in which Ivan is speaking with a character called Alyoshka the Baptist. Here’s an excerpt:
"The thing is, you can pray as much as you like but they won't take anything off your sentence and you'll just have to sit it out, every day of it, from reveille to lights out."
"You mustn't pray for that.” Alyoshka was horrorstruck. “What d'you want your freedom for? What faith you have left will be choked in thorns. Rejoice that you are in prison. Here you can think of your soul. Paul the Apostle said: 'What mean you to weep and to break my heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Ivan is without hope. He’s in prison for no good reason, and he doesn’t understand Alyoshka’s perspective. Ivan’s world was full of cruelty, self-preservation, and grief.
The cruelty of that society was summed up by Solzhenitsyn himself in a speech when he said, “We have forgotten God. That is why all this has happened.” The Soviet government had forgotten God. Therefore its only purpose was to create an order that served the nation’s power-mongering leaders. Since they only cared about themselves, their government could be as cruel, suspicious, and tyrannical as they wanted it to be.
Subsequently, the people of the Soviet Union forgot God and lost hope. That’s what we see here in the passage. Alyoshka hoped in the Lord. He knew there must be a purpose to his imprisonment even if he didn’t know what it was. He knew that Christ holds everything together, that all things work for good for those who love Him. If God wanted him to be imprisoned or even die, he was joyfully ready (hence his quotation of Acts 21:13). Ivan didn’t have this hope.
While we don’t see this level of cruelty and paranoia in the US, we can still see the effects of the same attitude. In its subtlest form it has invaded the church. The very thought of going to prison for the cause of Christ is foreign to us. True, that doesn’t happen in America, but think about this. If we attempt to do something for God and it ends badly, most commonly, we think, “It’s hard. God must not want me to do it.” So many of us believe God’s greatest goal for us is financial security. We avoid suffering at all costs. We don’t go to places like Haiti because the political environment is too volatile. It would be dangerous for us. And when someone decides to go to a dangerous place for the cause of Christ, we often criticize them.
We have no hope, no reason to risk, no thought that suffering could be the right thing to do. Why?
America has not become like the USSR, but it’s coming. Attitudes in this country have already shifted against Christ. And while we fight to change those attitudes (and I believe we should), our church is slipping further away from His teaching, and our nation is becoming less and less tolerant of us. (I believe those two are interconnected, by the way. See “Hated and Highly Regarded.”)
But maybe that’s what God wants. Look at places in our world where the church is persecuted. It is growing. The people are serious about Christ – in many instances serious to the point of their own death. This attitude is alien to American Christians. We are like Ivan – looking for an extra bowl of mush when the glory of God’s kingdom is waiting for us if we’ll only hope in Him and take a chance. So what if they put us in prison? So what if they kill us? They cannot kill the soul.
But instead, in this nation where we are more or less accepted, we have become content, complacent even. Possibly complicit in our own downfall.
Why are we this way? Because we have no hope. Because we have forgotten God.
4 comments:
It's true!
I personally believe that the persecution of our spirits in our Western World is even more dangerous than being persecuted bodily (or how would you say it? carnal persecution?). In our world everything is made for being comfortable and the Christians are caught with it too. They feel comfortable and project the security system of the world unto God.
Once I heard a story of a girl that was persecuted and I forgot the whole story but she said something that this would be so much easier than living in the civilized western world where people are lead astray very softly.
We are not persecuted in the sense of put in prison and tortured, but in the spirit our spirits are persecuted. Very often we think the poor people that suffer under the persecution of ther bodies, but in these circumstances very often revivals start and a lot of people are coming to Christ. They know it has a price, but they know too, that if people are willing to die for it, there must be something and are attracted and find hope.
I find this line of a song of Mercy Me very true "You never know why You're alive until You know what You would die for". And I believe too, that without some kind of death there will be no fruit.
And I believe too, that today's church would have more power that would draw people, if they would follow this godly way of death and resurrection and not simply think "Oh, God loves me and everything has to run well".
Continuation :-)
What I really love is that the Kingdom of God is so full of power and paradoxes. In our world to die to Yourself and to the world sounds like weakness, but in the Kingdom of God it brings growth and maturity. Once You stepped on this way it becomes adveturous, but You can feel the power growing. And it can become fun too.
I can be very active in this subject because as church we spent years now to get "Egypt" and "Babylon" out of our heart, and spirit, and soul, and thoughts, and emotions. The system of this world is the system of Babylon. Everything has to be greater and better and higher and people exalt themselves as God. This system tells us, what we can do and what not, what we can afford and what not, it tempts us with nice looking things, but smashes us down in the end. This system is made for destruction of men. But as children of God we are delivered. God delivered us from this "Egypt" from captivity, from bondage. But to be delivered doesn't mean that we automatically act after God's Kingdom. We grew up in the system of the world and are used to its ways and have to get a renewment of our mind to act after the system of God's Kingdom. And that can be a long way, because our mind learned to trust to the things it can see and learned in this world. And now it's unto our spirit to trust on the word of God and on things that can't be seen. That's the way how we die to this world, how we die to our flesh and build the Kingdom of God in this world.
Continuation again :-)
Another point that is interesting is, that the world doesn't have so much problems with a different lifestyle like many Christians have.
What I mean is, that when You as Christian choose to live full on God's promises, most of the time it's not the world that starts to cry but the Christians around You. They'll tell You how stupid You are and that it won't work. The world rather admires that You go for what You believe.
I lived for 3 years without health insurance. I stopped working to finish my studies. I had an insurance from the work I had but fell out of it and had to choose if I want to insure myself on a private basis. Because I hadn't so much money and had to pay my studies I decided to not do it.
This time taught me to trust God. In this time I had an accident with my right feet. I didn't go to the doctor, I decided to trust God. It took me 3 months to be able to walk again without the crutches and I cried a lot of tears. But it's a time I never want to miss in my life. I got rid of all the fear what all can happen. If You have open eyes You see how this system works with fear. The insurances and doctors tell You what can happen to You and You pay and pay and pay for things that never might happen. You should go to all kind of examines just to be sure. But You can't be sure 100%. Our lives lay in God's hands, he's the one who made us, he's the one who sustains us, and he's the one who determines our end. I don't say, don't go to the doctor or something like this. I just ask the question where do we put our faith in? In God or in the doctors and insurances?
And to explain that I decided to live without an health insurance was far more difficult to explain to Christians than to people in the world.
It's something like You, Jud, posted in that blog. YOu said that Christians look the same, when people want to go as missionaries into other places or things like that.
It's the same with finances.
In our country with the money I have, I would fall out of the measure of our social system. When I would try to get some supporting moneys from the government they would tell me that I lie to them because I have to less money. I can't live with it. But I can.
The world or this Babylonian system I spoke of, tells us what we need and what we don't need. They tell YOu what life standard You have to have to be a normal civilized person. And it's a way to get out of this way of thinking. Because it's a lie.
God tells us that he wants to provide for us. Of course he uses the natural things like work and so on. But that he provides for us doesn't mean that he does it in the standard the world gives.
The people of Israel went through the desert and didn't lack at food and clothes and still they comlained. Matthew 6 tells us that the Father wants to care for us in these areas. He wants to give us food, he wants to give us clothes, he's our Creator, he knows what we need.
I decided for myself that as long as I can avoid it I don't want to use the support of the worldly system when God promised to provide for me. Sometimes there's a lot of money, sometimes there's no money. But I don't put my trust in the money, I put it in God who is the owner of everything. That I have no money at some days doesn't mean that I can't live. YOu ever realized that this is so much in our minds, we have to have money to live. But God even has different ways. We have to put our trust in God.
And I believe it's true what YOu wrote, that very often we don't believe God. Of course we wouldn't say it, but our hearts don't believe. We have forgotten him as the one who he is.
And did You ever think about this: It takes the same faith to believe that I am saved like to believe that I am healed e.g. It's the same faith. How can we believe we are saved, when we don't believe all the other things that God promised in his word? It's the same faith.
The only difference is, that in a lot of things we can manage things for ourselves and we have them under control, while to save our souls isn't anything we could do for ourselves so we have to trust. But it's the same faith...do we really trust? Or is our heart filled with fear?
Jesus Christ came to deliver us from this fear.
You know, my previous blog was kind of about this. If we really are different from the world, it's true that they'll hate us - they really won't want to associate with us. But I believe at the same time they will respect us, and they'll have a true picture of Jesus.
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