When your inner lion is roaring, it’s easy to stand up for what you think is right. Something triggers you emotionally or physically or spiritually, and that lion bears its teeth and is ready to rumble.
But when you are feeling small and insignificant, vulnerable, it’s hard to remember you even have an inner lion, much less to summon it to do battle–no matter how just the war.
Isn’t it odd that it is often when we feel the least prepared and able to stand up for what’s right is when we’re called upon to do so? Doesn’t it seem as if there’s a hidden switch that is flipped at the worst possible times, where we’re called on to not only act but to appear in full armor because the testing is so intense?
This has been on my mind a great deal lately, largely to some research I’ve been doing on the number of Christians who are being murdered and persecuted, like in the massacre that occurred on Easter Sunday. For Christians, Easter is the ultimate celebration. Our Lord Jesus Christ conquered death and hell and rose. It’s breathtaking when you think about it. Humbling when you evaluate it. And yet on this Easter morning, hundreds were deprived of worshiping and of their lives.
Adding insult to injury, the media referred to the victims as “Easter Worshipers” rather than Christians. The intent occurred by too many for that to be coincidence. The deflection was deliberate: a concentrated effort to lessen the disturbance to Christians for fear they would do something. For fear they would stand up.
While Christians have been slumbering–and by that, I mean, staying busy minding their own business and living their lives–Christians have become the most persecuted segment of society globally. Think about that for a second. Murder is wrong and we all know it. But so is the disparity in the public conversation about it.
A scant month ago, forty-five Muslims were massacred in a mosque. The media covered it for a week. Laws were changed. Lives rearranged. On Easter, over 350 Christians were massacred in a church and hundreds more were injured and the media glosses over the event and moves on the day after the event, avoiding with rare exceptions, that the victims were Christians.
The event itself had its intended effect. Christians felt small, were made by omission to feel insignificant and small. Inconsequential. But many stood up. They summoned their inner lions and proved they might be vulnerable, they might be afraid, but they would stand. They would not be discounted or swept under a proverbial rug.
They attended church and sunrise services. They raised their voices in public forums. They worshiped and prayed and contacted their representatives to voice their objections to the treatment of Christians occurring and insisted that the relevant issues be addressed.
Constitutionally, our rights are endowed by our Creator. But it is up to us to keep those rights intact. We have slumbered for decades and erosion has occurred. Now things are at a point where we must choose. Shall we continue to slumber, or stand up…even if we feel small?
Something that repeats in my mind a great deal on this is what Jesus said in Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
We are a majority. Time we awaken and recall it. And tall or small, it’s…
Time we stand up.
