I Am Not Ok

Back in my high school days, my youth pastor asked me to help lead a youth drama group. The goal was to talk about faith in a new way so that we could have conversations with others about the gospel message. I helped to write, direct and lead in three short skits all around Easter my senior year (2002).

The Columbine shooting occurred when I was in middle school. I was homeschooled at the time and unfortunatly was sucked into the news footage for days of this horrific tradgedy, in a city not completely foriegn to me as my paternal grandmother lived nearby. For years following, the stories of those that died for Jesus that day became the center of my spiritual life. Would I be the one to stand and say yes?

This became the premise for the closing skit. I was sitting on a park bench and a stranger comes up and begins questioning me. My apologetics was strong back in those days as part of the spiritual leadership team for my Christian High School and we included in the script many of the questions I had encountered as I debated atheists at the National Day of Prayer in 2002 in downtown San Jose.

The questioner then asked, if my life depended on it, would I renounce Jesus Christ. I firmly said NO. The lights go out as a gun shot sound is played throughout the auditorium. The skit is over. The audience is moved. Many people gave their lives to Christ that day, and I was never the same.

See, September 11, 2001 was also in my senior year of high school. I started my commute at 6 am and found myself learning in real time on my way to class what had happened that morning on the east coast. I sat and prayed with my teachers and classmates as we struggled to make sense of the world. As soon as school got out, I was at my church that had opened for people to pray and interceed. I was face down on the carpet in front of the alter crying out to Jesus for hours.

The prayer I prayed most often in those days was: "Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14). I spent hours crying out for forgiveness for the sins of a nation that I loved.

I was barely 18 and I knew what I would do for the rest of my life. I would live for Jesus, even if it killed me. Today, it killed someone I respected. I once again was sucked into the media coverage of an assassination of a young family man that loved Jesus and did the very debates that I had been trained to do so many years ago. He also had a heart for the next generation and seeing God's Kingdom come to earth. He said yes to Jesus, and today, it cost him his life.

Once again, I am on the floor, crying out for our nation. Knowing that the enemy is within the gates. The time is short. The lines have been drawn. We are not ok. I am not ok.

For days, the Holy Spirit had been reminding me of this skit. Making my fingers itch to hit the keyboard and share some insight, but I couldn't figure out what exactly. Today, it hit me like a ton of bricks. We are under attack. It is not safe to stand for Christ or conservative values in a nation founded on those very principles. Am I still willing to stand? How many more will have to die to stop this hostile and demonic takeover of the next generation and our nation?

Friends, it is time. Time to mentor the next generation. To have conversations and get them to think, to think ourselves, and to be resonable. To share the raw and personal reasons for our faith. They will know that we are Christians by our love, not our hate. The first martyr of the faith was Stephen (See Acts 6-7) and his death gave fuel to the movement of dispersing the gospel that is still transforming lives today. It is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelation 12:11) that we overcome and have the victory. It is time to share the reason for our faith, to tell your story to anyone that God puts in your life, and to be real and vulnrable. It is what the world needs now, more than anything. We are all sinners, saved by an amazing God that sent His Son to die for our sins. I am a sinner, sitting at the foot of the cross being made pure by the Blood of the Lamb.

Thats my story.