I've never been imprisoned for Christ.
I've never been threatened, beaten, arrested, or tortured for Christ. Although I've walked through pain. And I could even say that I have invited some measure of a harder life because of choices my husband and I have made, I've never been imprisoned for Christ.
Although I could tell some story of pain that I've walked because of following Christ, the fact would remain, I've never been imprisoned for Christ.
But there are people around the world who are imprisoned for Christ.
Because of their stories, because of their lives, I am more confident in the Lord. I am emboldened to speak the word without fear in my little corner of the world.
In a small Russian village lives a man named Dmitri. Dmitri experienced the rise of communism. He saw pastors imprisoned or killed. By the time he was grown, the closest church-building was a 3-hour walk for Dmitri, his wife and his sons.
One day, Dmitri asked his wife, "What would you think if just one night a week we gathered the boys together so that I could read them a Bible story?"
His wife loved the idea and so he started teaching his family one night a week from the old family Bible.
Over time, the boys and Dmitri, and his wife learned the stories and told them back-and-forth to each other.
Eventually the boys wanted more. They wanted to "sing those songs that they sing when we go to the real church."
They sang together, read the Bible, and started praying together. And the neighbors began to notice.
Some wanted to come and listen and sing and pray. Dmitri protested. "I'm not trained. I'm not a minister."
But the people didn't care. As this very real church grew, authorities took notice. They threatened him warning him that bad things would happen if he didn't stop.
According to Dmitri, "little" things started to happen. He was fired from his job. His wife lost her teaching position. His boys were expelled from school.
One night with 75 people pressed into his tiny house, the door burst open. An officer pushed through the crowd, grabbed Dmitri, slapped him, slammed him against the wall, and ordered him to "stop this nonsense."
Dmitri didn't. At the next gathering, 150 people showed up. And Dmitri was dragged away and was imprisoned for his faith. Seventeen years. Seventeen years.
I've never been imprisoned for my faith. But reading Dmitri's story increases my confidence and emboldens me to speak the word.
The authorities locked Dmitri in a prison cell 1000 kilometers from home. The conditions were atrocious, but even worse, according to Dmitri, he was the only believer among 1500 hardened criminals.
Dmitri was tortured, beaten, and alone. But even so, he let it be known that his imprisonment was for Christ.
Each morning at daybreak Dmitri would stand by his bed, turn to the morning sun, raise his arms in praise to God, and sing a "HeartSong" to Jesus.
And every morning, the prisoners would laugh, jeer, curse at him. They threw food and sometimes even human waste to get him to shut up.
Dmitri had another practice. Anytime he found a scrap of paper, he would scratch out Bible verses using a stub of a pencil or a piece of charcoal he had found. He would take that scrap of Bible, and stick it on a damp pillar, as high as he could, as an offering to God.
For this he was beaten and threatened. But he refused to stop singing his HeartSongs. And he refused to stop offering his scratches to God.
Year after year, Dmitri endured. Authorities did unspeakable things to his family. At one point, they told him that his wife had been murdered and his sons had been taken by the state.
"We've ruined your home. Your family is gone."
Dmitri's resolve broke. He agreed to sign any confession they brought. "I must get out to find my children."
That night he went to sleep knowing that tomorrow two things would happen. He would renounce his faith. And he would be released from prison to go find his sons.
That night, he grieved. He was giving up. A thousand kilometers away, Dmitri's wife, children, and brother felt his despair and were moved to pray. They knelt together, prayed aloud, and miraculously, Dmitri heard the voices of his loved ones as they prayed.
In the morning, when the guards marched into his cell, Dmitri stood up, squared up, and looked at his captors. "I'm not signing anything."
The violence against continued and reached fever pitch. Dmitri was dragged from his cell for execution. As he was being dragged down the corridor, the strangest thing happened.
Fifteen hundred hardened criminals stood one-by one bedside. They faced the morning sun, and began to sing.
Fifteen hardened criminals raised their arms and began to sing the HeartSong that they had heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning for seventeen years.
Dmitri's jailers released their hold and stepped away in terror. "Who are you?"
Dmitri straightened his back. "I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is his name."
Dmitri was not executed that morning, or any morning. Sometime later, this son of the Living God was released and returned to his family. (This true story is told in Nik Ripken's Insanity of God p. 151-158)
Dmitri was imprisoned for Christ.
I've never been imprisoned for Christ. But his story increases my faith, increases my confidence, and increases my boldness.
And when I see others go through hard things, maybe not prison, but hard things for Christ, my faith gets stronger and I am emboldened.
According to Nik Ripken, believers in persecution don't ask that we pray for their persecution to end. But rather that they would be faithful and obedient through their persecution.
For most believers, persecution is completely avoidable. If someone just walks away from Jesus, the persecution will end. Persecution will not happen if faith is private.
I have not been imprisoned for Christ, but I can identify with them. If your heart is stirred, identify with believers in persecution. Learn about their struggles. Pray for their strength, their courage, their families. And ask God to increase your faith, increase your confidence, and enable you to speak with boldness, love with boldness, and live with boldness in your personal trial.
I've never been imprisoned, but I can choose to identify with those who are by living for Christ with boldness in my corner of the world.
May I suggest ...
Read Nik Ripken's Insanity of God. It has impacted me like Bonhoeffer, A Chance to Die, and Shadow of the Almighty. But not only is it the story of one family's odyssey to address the really hard questions brought on my their own trials, it is Nik's journey of learning how faith flourishes in places of despair and human hopelessness.
Subscribe to Voice of the Martyrs. This subscription will keep you up-to-date on persecuted Christians around the world, and you can learn how you can support them in their persecution.
Most of us will never be imprisoned for our faith, but we can read about, pray for, identify with those who are, and choose to live with boldness for Christ in our corner of the world.
Do stories like this increase your faith? Help you to speak boldly, live boldly, love boldly? What books, or other resources, stir confidence in your heart? Leave a comment and let me know. I'd love to hear from you!
And if you're joining us for the first time, welcome to the riverside! We're going slowly through the book of Philippians. Learn more, right here.