#ORANGE21 – Sameh Salah Faruq

The murder of Sameh Salah Faruq generates with in me a guttural longing for the resurrection of the dead.  Everything in me desires that these past twenty days of gruesome death be transformed from gory to glory.  I know my Redeemer lives and I long for Him to take action.  Right the wrongs.   Destroy evil.  Kill death once and for all.

Until then my responsibility is ………………………… patience.  Man, this is hard for me.  I don’t want “in three days I will rise again.”  I want resurrection now.  Unlike Jesus in Gethsemane, I pray, “Not thy will but mine be done.”  Crazy, I know.

Patience is the tamed version of long-suffering.  I don’t want suffering.  Definitely no suffering for a long time.  Loooooong-suuuufffferrring is anti-American.  Doesn’t line up with popular U.S. theology.  Pain can’t be good for the Christian. King’s kids don’t suffer.  Or so they say.

A fellow I know verbally excoriated my leader for “Thinking that God may be at work in the midst of one’s disease. God NEVER redeems disease.  All disease was healed on the cross with Christ.”  Another friend of mine insists that all disease is from poor nutrition.  “God’s food is the answer to all disease.  Why don’t Christians understand that healing is in eating the correct foods?”

These folks seem to think that God has promised us “three score and ten” (seventy) years.  BUMMER!  God couldn’t pull that one off for His own Son.  Jesus died thirty-seven years short of that time line.

Sometimes we are simply called to long-suffering while maintaining and growing in the nature and character of our Lord.  On the cross God identified with us in our long-suffering.  Some theologians hold that God is both past, present and future all at the same time.  He is the Great I AM, meaning He never was or will be but is in the eternal state of “am.”  Thereby, Jesus is eternally the Dead Sacrifice for our sin and the Living Savior all at the same time.  Whatever turns out to be the case on the “I Am-ness” of God, I know He understands long-suffering.

Sameh Salah Faruq’s murder reminds me that I have signficant anticipation for resurrection day.

“Even so.  Come Lord Jesus, come.”

In Honor, Respect and Gratitude for Sameh Salah Faruq

Almighty God, thank you for your son, Sameh Salah Faruq.  Like a father whose son is inside a burning building anticipates the extinguishing of the flames by the Fire Department, I wait for you to extinguish the suffering and unnecessary death of your Christian children.

One of my favorite “Sunday Night” songs, as a child, was “It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus.  Life’s trials will seem so small, when we see Christ.  One glimpse of his dear face, all sorrow will erase.  So bravely run the race till we see Christ.”

Grant to me grace for long-suffering.

Comfort all who mourn today.