Premonition

Do you ever get those weird feelings like there's something that God's trying to tell you, but it's so off the wall you can't really tell if it's from God or not? I've had that for the past couple of weeks (and no, this is not about a boy, for once). And I have no clue where it's coming from...

I guess I should start from the beginning. I've known I was called to the mission field for about a year now. God grabbed a hold of me last year and showed me very plainly that He wanted me to be a missionary overseas (before you ask, no I don't know where I'm going).

For the past three weeks God has almost continually been reinforcing that call. It started with a chapel about three weeks ago, and they showed a video from The Voice of the Martyrs. This just happened to coincide with UMHB's Missions Emphasis Week. Robyn headed up the Persecution Simulation, and she told me some pretty intense stuff from that, about how about thirty people were "killed" for their faith, and a couple of people even denied Christ. Since then, I've been thinking a lot about persecution, and it keeps coming up. Last Sunday, a guest pastor at the church I've been going to talked about boldly proclaiming the Gospel. The speaker at chapel on Monday talked about ministering to the people around us, and about taking risks for the Good News. And then, today at church the youth pastor talked about understanding that to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

I'm not going to lie... most of this freaks me out a little. I've learned enough about God to know that when things keep coming up like this, there's generally a reason- there's no coincidences when it comes to stuff like this. But I honestly don't know what He's trying to tell me.

I've come to a place now where I know that I'm a soft Christian. My faith has never been tested with someone telling me that I'm absolutely wrong. I've definitely never been told that if I don't deny my Lord someone's going to kill me. I can't help but wonder... if I'm placed in that situation, am I going to deny Jesus? Will I be able to stand up in the face of death and say, "Yes, I believe in Christ, and I don't care what you do to me"? The girls that denied Christ in that persecution simulation probably never thought that they would react that way.

But something else I've come to realize as I was talking to my mom about all of this... The God that we serve is truly a God of grace. If we do deny Christ, we don't lose our salvation. Peter denied Jesus three times, and he went on to establish the church in Rome and eventually be martyred for his faith. Every one of the disciples ran away when Jesus needed them most, and all but one were martyred for their faith. William Tyndale (if I remember right) denied that he was printing Bibles during Bloody Mary's reign, and eventually he was martyred. History is full of examples of second chances.

I have to admit... the thought of dying overseas in very painful ways scares me. I always hoped that one day I would be able to die quietly in my sleep... and who knows, that still might await me. But I'm slowly accepting the idea that "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." If I do have a long life, I have so many more opportunities to serve Him and to share His love with others. If I die, I pray that it will be in a way that glorifies God, and if God is glorified through a painful death, it's okay with me.