Waking Up to the Syrian Refugee Crisis

A Confession

For far too long, I've been living unto myself, safely tucked away in my little American bubble with no real worries to speak of. I shamefully admit that, even though I'm saturated with far more blessings than most of the world would even know to dream of, I have daily battled against discontentment and self-pity. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, as a byproduct of being raised in modern America, I had bought in to the consumerist lies that permeate every facet of our culture. It nauseates me to confess the trivial thoughts that were constantly at the forefront of my mind: Could I find a good deal on outdoor sofa cushions? When will I finally get some “me” time? I wonder what's happening on Facebook? I'm so tired of my purse – I need a new one. Wouldn't things be so much better if I could just keep those five pounds off?

 

Although, through the years, God's Spirit within me had steadily moved my heart closer to what concerns His heart, my mind was still far too consumed with thoughts about myself.

Then came February 15, 2015, when ISIS released the graphic video of their brutal, systematic murder of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians on the shores of Libya.

 

 



 As I stared into the determined eyes of those brave martyrs, my own eyes that were once sealed shut to the ISIS-induced crisis going on in the Middle East began to crack open. I was finally jarred awake to the magnitude of monstrosities that are being committed every second in the lives of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Men, women and children – children - raped, tortured, and beheaded on a daily basis, under the banner of a holy calling.

 

Refugees in crisis.

EPA

Life is so desperate for them that, in 2015 alone, of the 300,000 refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea by boat as they flee the terror of ISIS for the safety of European shores, over 2,500 have drowned, their bodies washing ashore as the world watches.

 

To understand more about the extent of the crisis, click here.

 

A woman removes the life jacket from a baby, who survived the journey,

moments after Syrian refugees arrived on a dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos

Reuters/Dimitris Michalakis



How could I have missed this for so many years? Where had I been?!

 

I knew at the very least that I needed to start praying for this situation, so in February I set an alarm on my phone and began to pray every day for the relief, strengthening and protection of the persecuted Church. And now, six months later, I feel like God has been faithful to answer my prayers in a way I didn't expect as He has more fully removed the scales from my eyes and stirred deeply in not only my own heart, but in the hearts of my husband and close friends.

 

I came home last week to find a book titled Defying ISIS: Preserving Christianity in the Place of Its Birth and in Your Own Backyard lying on my husband's nightstand. He had devoured that book in only two days, and God used it to spark a raging flame in my husband's heart. I am now married to a man on fire who is consumed with prayerfully searching out how we can use our lives to bring God's light and love to those suffering through this crisis. And in His perfect providence, God has simultaneously been at work in the hearts of many of our friends as well, stirring us all more and more awake. This has caused my prayer focus to now shift toward asking God how my family, friends and I can specifically be the instruments of relief, strengthening and protection for which I was originally praying.

We've only just begun this journey, but for starters, my husband's and my whole outlook on how we spend the money with which God has blessed us has radically changed. We've become hyper-aware that every dollar that flows in and out of our home can either be used for eternal good, or for our own selfish gain (oh, how much money we have wasted!) – and so consequently we are in the process of completely re-vamping how we manage our funds so that we can free up more of them to go toward the refugee relief effort, as well as looking in to various ways we can make extra income to donate.

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A Call to Action

What if we all began to have the radical perspective that God allowed us to be born here in America not simply for our own comfort and gain, but so that we could maximize the opportunities we have in order to bless others with them? We did nothing to deserve being born here – why do we think we should just hoard all our gain unto ourselves? Who does that benefit? In the end, it doesn't even benefit ourselves – just look at the results of our national greed (obesity, depression, debt, addictions, etc.).

A person can never be truly satisfied if they are living only for their own gain. If you want to see a truly joyful person, find someone who is following Paul's example in Philippians 2:17 and pouring out his every day for a cause greater than himself. In the inspirational words of George Bernard Shaw:

 

This is the true joy in life...being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy...I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It's a sort of splendid torch which I've got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

The ultimate joy is to align our lives with the mission of pushing back the darkness by holding out the light of Christ. Jesus rightly said in Matthew 10: 39 that unless we lose our lives, we cannot find them.

 

The persecuted Church knows all about this.

 

Syrian refugees in Bulgaria

But as modern Americans, we are pummeled daily with the completely opposite message: YOU are what it's all about. Seek comfort, pleasure and protect whatever is YOURS above all else. We are fools to think this self-absorbed, antichrist mindset has not permeated the American Church.

 I challenge you to spend some time asking Christ how you specifically have bought into this lie, and to help you see that, as His children, our lives are not our own, they were bought with a price, and truly there is no greater joy than laying them down out of gratitude and love for Christ.

 

As Defying ISIS author, Johnnie Moore, writes, “It has always been a mystery to me why so many Christians in the West struggle to live for what so many Christians in persecuted countries are willing to die for.”

 

It is a difficult exercise, but for the sake of compassion, just take a moment and try to really understand what life is like for those being hunted down by ISIS. Allow yourself to imagine what it would be like if ISIS showed up on your front doorstep, lined your family up and then demanded that you all either convert to their ideology or die. And then imagine what it would be like if the last thing your eyes ever saw before you entered eternity was the murder of your own children for their refusal to deny Christ. As seemingly impossible as it sounds in our modern era, this is no nightmarish fairy tale – this is the brutal reality for thousands of Christians this very moment.

 

The stories are endless. And it could very easily be our own reality sooner than we think.

 

We are living in a time of laying down lives – our persecuted brothers and sisters lose theirs because they would rather die than deny their precious Savior. Let us follow their stunning example and, at the very least, lay down our comforts, taking up the mandate to live simply, so that our storehouses are opened to their needs, and perhaps somehow we can offer them relief.

 

Syrian refugees.

Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA

In the words of Sister Rose, a young Iraqi nun who is bravely risking her life to save those hunted down by ISIS, “Americans are wonderful people. It's shocking to me that they are so silent in the face of our genocide. Please help us. Raise your voice for us. Our children are dying. In America you care for your pets so well, can you care for your Christian brothers and sisters who are suffering?” (Defying ISIS, p. 70).

 Start asking God how He wants you to help:

•  For an excellent article on practical ways to get involved , check out 8 Ways to Help Refugees a World Away.
• How can you encourage your friends, family and church to get involved?
• Whatever job God has given you to do, do it for a greater purpose! If you write, write for this greater purpose. If you create, create for this greater purpose.
• Take a hard look at how you spend the money with which God has blessed you. What if you only lived on half your income and donated the rest of it, instead of saving up for another toy that you'll tire of in two weeks? Or, what if it was a given that, of course we all lived on one income and gave the other one away?
• What do you have lying around your house that you could sell and donate the money to help refugees? What about all that old jewelry getting tarnished in your closet? How many bags of gently used clothing can you fill up to donate? 

We all know that in the end, we can't take anything with us when we are done with this life. Scripture speaks again and again of our need to not be tied down with the love of money, but to be satisfied with living simply. If the Church would take this Biblical mandate seriously, billions of dollars would be released to serve those in need. According to the Status of Global Mission 2010, only 1.73% of the total global church member annual income is given to Christian causes.

 

Beloved Church, our brothers and sisters are desperate, displaced, and dying every day...and yet we are shamefully far more concerned about where our next vacation should be or what restaurant we'll eat out at tonight.  

 It's far past time for us to wake up to the vicious reality of what is happening on the other side of the world (and is rapidly on its way to our shores). Christ calls us to help those who are suffering, especially those of the family of faith (Galatians 6: 10), and when we do, it is as if we are doing it for the very Lord Himself:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ - Matthew 25: 35-40

Christ's Body is floating in the Mediterranean Sea, beaten and bruised. How can we sit idly by and do nothing?

This is the greatest humanitarian catastrophe we will ever see in our lifetime, and it's happening to our Family members. We can no longer turn a blind eye with the hopes that it will just all go away. It is happening, even as I type these words – and we need not deceive ourselves with the thoughts that it will never happen on the presumed safety of American soil.

We each have to decide in our hearts whether we will be a part of the silence, or will we join with those who are standing up, speaking out, sacrificing comforts, and serving?

We were born for such a time as this.

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The Lord Will Not Forsake His People

Psalm 94
O Lord, God of vengeance,
    O God of vengeance, shine forth!
2 Rise up, O judge of the earth;
    repay to the proud what they deserve!
3 O Lord, how long shall the wicked,
    how long shall the wicked exult?
4 They pour out their arrogant words;
    all the evildoers boast.
5 They crush your people, O Lord,
    and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the sojourner,
    and murder the fatherless;
7 and they say, “The Lord does not see;
    the God of Jacob does not perceive.”

8 Understand, O dullest of the people!
    Fools, when will you be wise?
9 He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
10 He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
He who teaches man knowledge—
11     the Lord—knows the thoughts of man,
    that they are but a breath.

12 Blessed is the man whom you discipline, O Lord,
    and whom you teach out of your law,
13 to give him rest from days of trouble,
    until a pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For the Lord will not forsake his people;
    he will not abandon his heritage;
15 for justice will return to the righteous,
    and all the upright in heart will follow it.

16 Who rises up for me against the wicked?
    Who stands up for me against evildoers?
17 If the Lord had not been my help,
    my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence.
18 When I thought, “My foot slips,”
    your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.
19 When the cares of my heart are many,
    your consolations cheer my soul.
20 Can wicked rulers be allied with you,
    those who frame injustice by statute?
21 They band together against the life of the righteous
    and condemn the innocent to death.
22 But the Lord has become my stronghold,
    and my God the rock of my refuge.
23 He will bring back on them their iniquity
    and wipe them out for their wickedness;
    the Lord our God will wipe them out.