The Great Escape

By Rod Matthews

If you have never felt "imprisoned" at some time, it's possible you may not yet be born! The Karen refugee members we support are not allowed to move freely around Thailand nor apply for jobs. Nor can they return home to Myanmar without endangering their lives. They are in reality imprisoned.

Many Christians who are born or converted in some non-Christian countries live in fear of their lives and well-being. One of our ministers who co-ordinates mission work in Bangladesh has a nephew living there who was badly beaten with metal rods because he was a Christian who was just trying to be friendly. Millions of Christians in the Middle East and parts of Asia and Africa would love to escape their "prison" and live life openly and freely with peace and joy.

Yet all too often many of us who live in countries without the threat of persecution also feel imprisoned and feel like helpless victims of our circumstances. No one escapes this feeling at least occasionally - not even the resilient apostle Paul. He talked about how we are often "hard-pressed on every side...perplexed...persecuted...struck down..." and how "death is at work in us" and "outwardly we are wasting away." It certainly seems this way when we stand on the edge of the grave of a loved one to whose absence we must now adjust.

All of us have experienced this at some time but several of our dear brothers and sisters in Christ have gone through this personally in recent weeks. Yet we have no option but to walk on and endure and overcome the suffering and loneliness and adjustment. It can seem we are walking rhought the valley of the shadow of death. But, remember the shepherd psalmist clearly says we are walking THROUGH, not TO the valley, and it is a SHADOW, not the reality. The valley is not the destination, only a transit lane. And the shadows that seem oppressive or frightening cannot trip us up even if they sometimes reduce our clarity of vision.

In the human struggle, the big things - and sometimes the little things - can erode our optimism so we see only the negative. We face conflicts and disorganisation, and time pressures, and unreasonable demands, and uncontrollable situations, and endless frustrations to our personal desires and comforts. Tragically, some give up.

But the good news is only veiled to those who are perishing. And as Christians we are not! For this temporary human life is NOT God's greatest gift to us. Paul exclaimed that we are willing to endure the hardships because we will be raised from the dead and inducted into eternal glory. Paul's answer to the realities of life is that "we...are not crushed;...not in despair;...not abandoned;...not destroyed...Therefore, we do not lose heart...inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen...what is unseen is eternal."

Paul endured amongst other things imprisonment, floggings, shipwrecks, beatings and stonings, hunger and sleeplessness. He certainly saw the reward more vividly than we usually do. So in our struggles with the presures of family, work and health, of standing up as a follower of the Master and as an appointed part of his body, or doing our part in sharing the good news with the hopeless and the confused around us, of collectively contributing to the work we can do together through our fellowship, remember to look to what is not seen...yet! The promises of God are guaranteed. The visible around us often gives out wrong signals - and it will all pass away. Let us walk by faith and not by sight. That is the great escape!

(From part of 2 Corinthians 4:3-18. See also same passage in The Message)

This article first appeared in the Australian Worldwide News of August 2002
and was used with permission.