God Says Amen

“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.” 

-Hamlet (Act III, Scene 3)

I was fourteen when I first saw Hamlet, and though much of the meaning passed over me in a whelming flood of poetic language, I was nonetheless arrested by the play’s opening as fog steals silently across the ground for the scene which sets the whole plot in motion. It must be night. It must be cool and humid. There is something eerie afoot. You can sense it in the atmosphere. A ghastly anticipation rises as the spirit world intersects and overlays the physical one; and fate begins to wind the wheels of Hamlet’s life into motion. The ghost of the king is about to make himself known.

Sometimes when we pray the Holy Spirit slides unnoticed into the room like fog along the ground and changes the whole atmosphere. We can sense the shift; the transformation in the people who are praying around us. They are no longer merely people who entered clothed in winter coats and cares, but those who have been radiantly transformed and speak in the oracles of God. Anticipation rises as the veil between the spirit and the material world shows itself to be gossamer thin. God is listening— and not only listening, but incredibly— it even feels as though He is adding His amen. The words prayed are no longer just words, but become heavier things—weighted with purpose like a cup filled to the brim with water. 

I’m always surprised when God shows up to pray with me like this. This experience of Him makes me thirsty for more of His presence; for prayer that enervates, rather than a rote experience of the words without thoughts that barely make it out of my head, let alone all the way to heaven. And I long for that feeling—as though a divine hand has laid itself upon my shoulder—and suddenly I’m praying things I’ve never thought of before and believing with earnest faith because they resound with the clear ring of truth.

But it isn’t always like that. More often than not, it is prayers that evaporate in the yawning face of sleep, and or get shuffled in the deck of thoughts that I deal throughout the day. I want more of God Himself, but I get more of me, instead. If I’m honest, sometimes I don’t want God to show up and start talking when I’m about to fall asleep. I don’t really want to hear from Him when I’m getting my day sorted out. I want to leave Him a spiritual voicemail and then He can get back to me with His specific answers to each of my requests when it is convenient for us both (but mostly for me). 

The difference in those prayers, it seems to me, is anticipating His presence and not just the answers that He could give. It is so easy to focus on the problems at hand that need a God solution; rather than to expect the presence of the God for whom nothing is a problem. For truly, when God shows up, the normal rules no longer apply. Perspectives are dynamically changed by the Unchanging One. No one will drop off to sleep when the Holy Spirit speaks. No one will forget that they are praying and start composing a grocery list instead. 

The truth about faith is that when you start to look for God, you begin to hear Him moving just beyond your sight. Anticipation grows as the mist of His presence descends while you are still straining in the dark to see Him. The night begins to flee; the true light of dawn is breaking. There is something holy afoot. You can sense it in the atmosphere as you begin to realize that there is no veil between the spiritual world and the one you live in. The circumstances that masqueraded as random hardships begin to look like plot. Soon, the Holy Ghost of the King is going to make Himself known.

American Martyrs

American Martyrs.

This phrase has been running through my mind since hearing of the massacre of Christians in Sutherland Springs, Texas. The news felt like it blew a sucking hole in my own chest that stayed throughout the whole of the day and into the next. Not too long ago, my own little church was made up of about fifty people. Multiple generations of my own family attend there. It could just as easily have be us. 

This feeling doesn’t really fit with the media talking points about lax gun laws or the Second Amendment since I live in Canada--a supposed utopia of non-violence--where few people carry guns. I was in high school when Columbine became the buzzword for mass shooting. How many times in its immediate aftermath did I hear my fellow Canadians say, “Only in America. That would never happen here.” It proved to be hollow comfort when a week later a teen took a gun to his own school in the small town of Taber, Alberta (pop. 8400) and shot at three students, wounding one and killing Jason Lang, the son of a Taber pastor, before he was wrestled to the floor and disarmed by a teacher.

‘Only in America, where guns are as plentiful as the gun nuts’, was proven to be the foolish and despicable sentiment that it was. Guns are heavily restricted in Canada. According to the law, the Taber shooter shouldn’t have had one. He also should have trembled before God at the thought of committing such an evil act. But he didn’t. Laws, be they governmental or moral, are breakable. That’s what sin is. When the ‘only in America’ explanation failed, the media moved on to discussing motives--video games and bullying--as though such things made surrendering to an evil temptation more acceptable. At Jason Lang’s funeral, his father, Rev. Dale Lang, did something much harder than surrender to the temptation to sin. He forgave his son’s killer.

That story has receded into the mist of memory as other atrocities take up our collective attention, from 9/11 to the current onslaught of terrorist acts. “Church shootings” is now also a thing. Charleston’s Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tennessee’s Burnet Chapel Church of Christ, and now First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, can count their own as martyrs for the sake of Christ. These churches are outposts of my family. They are made up of brothers and sisters whom I have never met, but we share the same precious blood. They are now counted among those who lost their lives for the word of God and the witness they bore; those who cry out from the alter in heaven, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?”

I shall leave the exploration of the layers of motivations to the investigators, but what none of us who are part of the Body of Christ should deny is that these are not senseless acts of violence. These are not random victims. These were targeted acts of persecution. While the shooters themselves may not be aware of the demonic powers that influenced them, we should not be oblivious to the enmity that is directed at those of us who are in Christ. We do not need to be missionaries in foreign climes to find ourselves abhorred for His sake.

The issue is not the availability of implements by which to harm. Cain murdered Abel because murder was in his heart, not because he’d been bullied, played video games, or been radicalized on the internet or had guns available. From fists to firearms to vehicle to weapons of mass destruction, the issue is evil in the heart of mankind. It has always been thus, and until it is dealt with at the cross, it will continue cut its bloody swath through the pages of human history.

Those of us in Western countries with a Judeo Christian founding have been--for a time--largely shielded from the outright violent persecution that our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world experience on a daily basis. But as our nations increasingly decry the godly precepts that established their strength and prosperity; proclaiming themselves to be post-Christian and too scientifically sophisticated for such foolish beliefs as “God”; we will face increasing hostility. One only needs to briefly peruse social media to observe the way that celebrities and cultural figures can revile the dead as ‘having the prayers shot out of them’ in order to note that we are truly aliens in a hostile world.

Martyrdom and persecution is a frightening prospect for us all, but we should take heart. The very persecution that seeks to stamp out the gospel, always serves to spread it rapidly. The fires that are meant to obliterate the Church, always serve to refine and strengthen her.  Not a single one of those lives lost--from the smallest in the womb to the elder who should have been honoured--will be wasted. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. (Psalm 116:15) Joseph’s words to his brothers echo through the generations and proclaim the truth of what can only be true by the grace of an almighty God. “What you intended for evil, God has used for good.” This is our faith. Take heart, He has overcome the world.