Are You a Chocolate Soldier?

Euthanize children? Just imagine! Toronto is considering the right to do so, at this moment…and even more unbelievably, without any form of a parent’s consent.

When I heard this, I was shocked….

Yet, I remember in college, discussing a subject my professor promoted, “The right to euthenize”. The discussion centered around this idea…

“If we allow euthenization…where does it stop? First we euthenize the aging who are suffering. We already allow the killing of unborn children…Won’t the line then turn inward to children and younger adults. Before long…who will we excluded from the permitting of taking a life? Isn’t it a fine line that we just don’t want to cross?”

That was our college logic, decades ago. Since then, abortion laws have softened. We now don’t just abort in medically dangerous situations, but full term infants in places like Canada & China, and even in America.

We have blurred the line, softened the hard of unwanting mothers raising their own children. Now, we are even considering it possible to elimate younger children, in situation’s where things are difficult?

Where does this escaping the “hard” part of our stories end?

Randi Zlotnik Shaul, the director of bioethics at SickKids, Dr. Adam Rapoport, a palliative-care pediatrician and ethicist, and University of Toronto doctoral student Carey DeMicheli take the stance, “It is wrong to force a person to live in circumstances of unendurable and irremediable suffering”. (Read more here)

Really?

• When did we conclude doing hard things is wrong? Suffering is bad? Or that we have the right to assist someone demanding their own (or anothers) breath?
• When did we become a society that runs from suffering?
• When did we flip upside-down a gospel that places difficulty at it’s center?
• When did we demand comfortable, complacent, easy life circumstances when hard is meant to challenge and shape us?

Isn’t suffering, the core theme in the gospel? Can we find even one Biblical account where someone’s life was easy or trial-free? Esther? Job? John? Jesus?

I mean, when did we create a world where we started playing God, could rise up and dictate the taking of a life…whether it’s an unborn child, an elderly person, or now children without parent’s rights or consent?

When did we become a people who say, “We have the right to extingquish anything that might cause suffering?”

If you ask me, scripture warns of this thinking, stating, “Knowledge puffs up”. It cries to not evaluate ourselves in our own eyes, but in reflection of God and His Holy Scripture.

Brother Yun Spread of the Gospel like Wildfire, Because of Suffering

Brother Yun’s real name is Liu Zhenying. Brother Yun was beaten, shocked and imprisoned for his faith. (More on His faith here)

He then miraculously escaped China’s, Zhengzhou Maximmum Security Prison, by simply walking out, prompted by the Holy Spirit. (His fully story, here)

No one had ever escaped from this death trap. As a result, the modern House Church movement spread because of Brother Yun.

Brother Yun quotes,

• “We shouldn’t pray for a lighter load to carry, but a stronger back to endure,”
• “There is great power when we suffer for the gospel.”
• “Suffering produces boldness, which causes the Kingdom of God to advance and the devil’s plans to be thwarted.”
• “Times of intense suffering produce a greater harvest of souls.”
• “The path of every (true) believer will sooner or later include suffering. The Lord gives us these trials to keep us humble and dependent on Him for our daily sustenance.”
• “The Lord wants us to embrace suffering like a friend.”
• “When we are persecuted, it is an act of God blessing us.”

Yet, we have become a people that flee at the first sign of difficulty, escape at the first hint of hardship, and run at the first implication of suffering. Why is that? 

Do we not know our God is with us? His plans and purposes will prevail? Have we not witnessed His power made perfect through suffering…difficulty builds character?

Maya Angelo Chooses Life

Maya Angelo, the great African American poet tells of her pregnancy at age sixteen. She shares about the love she received from her mother, despite her not being in a relationship with the baby’s father.

Maya says,

“Back then if you had money there were some girls who got abortions. But I couldn’t deal with that idea.

“Oh, no. No.

“I knew there was somebody inside me. So I decided to keep the baby.”

She goes on to talk about how life was difficult. She got a job, moved out, and made her way, until present day, where she is now a the hero of so many hearts.

And I wonder…

• Wha her struggle, the grace-giving parts of her story?
• Was it her trials that turned her into a world-renound, influential writer and author?
• Was her challenges actually one of her greatest gifts?
• Was the very thing others encouraged her to despair of, what made Maya Angelo all she is today?

Yet, the world says, “Run from suffering”, despite history teaching us; all greatness often rises from suffering.

C.T. Studd, a missionary to China and Africa describes our modern-day Christians like a host of “Chocolate Soldiers”. (Read the book here)

He goes on to share….

“A chocolate Christian dissolves in water and melts at the smell of fire. Living their lives in a glass dish or in a cardboard box, each clad in his soft clothing, a little frilled white paper to preserve his dear little consititution…God never was a chocolate manufacturer and never will be. God’s men are always heroes. In Scripture you can trace their giant foot-tracks down the sands of time.”

And yet, we have somehow shrunk, demeaned, belittled, woosified the bold, courageous, valiant modern-day Christian.

We have deemed useless both the suffering of Christ and the cross we must bare that accompanies the fullness of His glory.

Suffering and glory have always been partners, inseparable workers, growing us in character while simotaneously burning away the dross fogging up our perception of glory and grace.

• When we run from suffering, do we miss the prison that shows us God can set free? Do we deny the pain that identifies us with Christ, and makes us appreciate His mercy?
• When we simplify God to some Savior wanting to only relieve us from all hard circumstances….does he become like some genie, existing only to make all of OUR wishes come true?
• Isn’t it by Him and to Him and for Him we seek His glory? Isn’t it through the valley, we learn He is Holy and Good, Redemptive and Perfect?
• Isn’t it in the desert of our suffering we find the living water, sources that reveal His provision and sovereignty?

Friends, if you are handed a gospel, mantra, or protocol for living that seeks only to eliminate suffering….run from it and deny it completely; be it a policy, a prescription, mantra, or addiction…

There is no escape from this hard road that is meant to ultimately grow us in integrity, character and strength….

In fact…

• What if this life was a fire that was a blaze simply for the purpose of showing us Jesus stands with us in the flames?
• What if the dry places were for the purpose of His praises…and the praises were our path to breaking down our own personal walls of Jericho.
• What if we are meant to become stronger in Him….and that dependency is what creates true relationship and freedom?

In China, they don’t pray for the imprisoned people’s freedom…they pray that God would be glorified and that the gospel would spread as a result of their persecution. 

• What if we stopped praying for our own ease and comfort, but like Maya Angelo, let our circumstances mold us into greatness?
• What if we lived like Brother Yun who was imprisoned and tortured, yet expanded the House Church movement as a result of it?
• What if we modeled Jesus, instead of resisting our own desert experiences….walked willing, carrying our own personal crosses….

God is big enough to deliver us, but if He doesn’t, will we still testify of Him, walk in grace, and glorify God through it all?

Don’t we have enough “chocolate Christians”?

Let’s live bold, fearless, not resisting or despairing in our own personal harships.

What if trails were actually our pathway to glory?

Let’s be like the first disciples, rejoicing, because we have been counted worthy of suffering. (Acts 5:41)