Fear and Rejection
November 23, 2009
Christina Melton writes –
I read my last post about how the weather was so perfect and walking was nice and blah blah whatever. And the week I did not write about: sick with no voice, windy rain, cold, tired, rude taxi driver, lots of potatoes… and still really thankful to be here.
Week 3 is settling week. I have a book for language lessons, my Montenegrin mom is back and cooking (yay!), and I have my voice back. There are plans in the air for the direction of the worship team here in PG, and hopefully we will nail down a good direction to start heading with the teens sometime this week.
Saturday was the annual pan-Montenegro youth conference. Unlike in the US, “youth” here refers to anyone 18 to 30ish, sometimes older, whereas “teens” are what we would call youth in the states. My work is with teens, but I attended the youth conference because, well, I am a youth.
I enjoyed meeting believers from other towns, and while there were not a ton of people who were able to attend, several cities were represented, including Belgrade and Sarajevo, which are outside of Montenegro.
I had the privilege of being part of the worship team for the conference and stuck with keys and percussion, which is good because I just get to listen and follow. My southern-US vowels are an obstacle when it comes to speaking Montenegrin (or the Ijekavian dialect of Serbian, depending on who you ask), so the thought of singing at this point is laughable. I am thankful that other people already do that well here.
The conference was a full day: worship, teachings, small groups, coffee (this is Montenegro), fellowship, and prayer. Our guest speakers were from Russia and from Sarajevo, and I enjoyed meeting them and hearing what they had to share. One of the believers from Nikšić translated for me into perfect History Channel British English, and I am very thankful for that.
The topic of the conference was sharing the gospel, hence the title of this post. My brilliant Montenegrin sister Violeta has been called a sectarian by teachers in her school, has had rocks thrown at her and police called on her simply for handing out flyers, and has spent the last 4 years as the only protestant Christian in her high school and in her predominately Muslim class. Needless to say, she is one of my heroes.
Naturally I began to think about the fear I have of such things. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the the majority of the US is thoroughly irritated with Christians. A large percentage of people in the US think that pastors are all out for money and that people in their congregations are mindlessly eating whatever is said from the pulpit, and that “Christian values” or whatever are the main obstacle to “freedom.” That’s what the average liberal arts university student who watches TV will tell you, and these are our future leaders in politics, scholarship, the arts, etc. Those were my surroundings the last couple of years. I am not in the US anymore, but I believe the majority of the people reading this are.
John 15:18-21
If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’
If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.
Why do we expect anything less? If we as believers conduct ourselves graciously toward outsiders, speak well because of our excellent educations, do charitable work that is approved of by the “let’s all be friends because God is too big for one religion” camp, and have such character that no one would even be able to believe an accusation of impropriety directed towards us, there is still one problem: We will be hated because of His Name.
So the sooner we realize this, the better.
John 3:19-21
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
If we walk around with a flashlight, people who have things to hide are not going to like it. Jesus Himself was light, and look what they did to Him. If we love people, we will be light in their lives because that is what love does. Some of the people we love are going to hate us. The sooner we realize that, the sooner we can start focusing on how to continue loving people when they hate us, rather that trying to figure out how to cover the light at first in order to be more palatable.
On the upside, we have good news! There is a God, and there is no falsehood in Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne! He is definable in that He has revealed Himself, first to the Jewish people, and now to the world through Jesus, who is the exact representation of His nature.
A God who is too righteous to interact with scum like us became one of us so that He could be in the same room with us without us dying instantly. Then, He let us kill Him so that we have an already-burnt place in the grass to step into on that day when fire consumes the field around us.
We can hand Him our lame-o plans for our lives and He will give us a much better, much more glorious life that we can create for ourselves. He wants to be with us, and wants us to be with Him, because that is eternal life (John 17:3).
It’s a good life.
Related posts:
- Settled in Montenegro
- Working Together
- Montenegro — Deepening Relationships
- Language, Kids and Worship
- Do I Really Live Here?
Comments
Got something to say?
