This past week a gunman went to a community college in Oregon and killed 10 people and wounded 20. These numbers may have changed or will change. I told my teenage kids about the shooting. I gave them that significant detail that the gunman asked people if they were Christian to stand up. Then he shot them. My daughter, being the sensitive one in the family, said she was now afraid to go to college next year.

It doesn’t surprise me that we had another shooting. It doesn’t surprise me that the shooter was calling out Christians. It doesn’t even surprise me that the main stream media wouldn’t cover the detail about the gunman calling out Christians. I turned inward after I heard about the shooting. I didn’t think about gun control, or our amendment rights to own guns. I wondered if I could stand up and say I’m a Christian in the face of a gun pointed to my head. Right now I write this with tears in my eyes. I really don’t know if I could. My first thought was a rationalization. The gunman is obviously crazy. Therefore, am I really making a stand for Jesus Christ in the face of a crazy gunman. Why am I accountable to a gunman?  Why do I have to answer to him? My first thought, is that it’s really not a situation of making a stand for Jesus Christ. I just don’t know.

I cringe when I think of the apostles who were persecuted and died horrible deaths. Stephen was stoned to death. Peter died upside down on a cross. Paul was beheaded. These men loved the Lord and served Him and then died horribly. Will the Lord ask the same of me?

My Sunday School Teacher often has told our class that he is a coward. He tells us that he reminds God that he is. And if there ever comes a time for him to make a stand, that God will help him through it. I admire his courage to admit that.

Growing up in a Godless town in Alaska, my sister and I suffered a tiny bit of persecution. My sister got whacked on the back with a book one time. When my sister turned around, the girl who did it said, “I just wanted to see if you would swear.” I remember saying “shoot” on the basketball court and another player accusing me of saying the other “sh” word. Another girl on my basketball team accused me of being a lesbian, because I didn’t have boyfriends and I didn’t talk about boys all the time, like she did. I remember that one hurt a bit, because it was the complete opposite of who I was. I really liked boys, but I knew I was saving myself for marriage and couldn’t date non Christians. Those things are minor, though, compared to having a gun pointed at one’s head and being asked if you are a Christian.

Last week I talked about Corrie Ten Boom and her inability to shake the hand of her former guard from the concentration camp she suffered at. She said when God asks us to love people, He also supplies the love. I have to trust in that. I don’t want to face a gun in my face and a gunman asking me if I’m a Christian. I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am a Christian. I know because when I accepted the Lord as my Savior, I KNEW the Holy Spirit moved in. I have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit countless times. I also know that God knows my fears and weaknesses. He knows everything about me.

Matthew 10:28-31 “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.”

I’m just going to have to trust in God. I have to trust in His love for me, His goodness, His faithfulness. He reminds us that not one bird falls, that He doesn’t know about it. God is good all the time. If it ever comes to that, I need to just trust God. I have no other choice.

Have you ever read the story, “The Hiding Place,” by Corrie Ten Boom. For those of you who haven’t I’ll give you a quick synopsis. Corrie Ten Boom lived in Holland during World War 2. She was a Christian who lived with her father and sister. They started hiding Jews in their home during the Nazi’s reign. Well Corrie and her family got caught and were sentenced to a concentration camp themselves. During this time, Corrie lost her sister and father.

In our Christian life we’re asked to do hard things. We’re asked to love people who are unlovable. We’re asked to resist sin, while our flesh desires it. We’re asked to forgive people, though they have wronged us. I have heard people say, for those reasons, they don’t want to submit to God-it’s just too hard. And it does seem hard. In our own flesh, how do we do these hard things? How do we love the unlovable? How do we resist sin that so entices us? How do we forgive people, when they done really bad things to us. I discovered the answer while reading, “The Hiding Place.”

I’m sure you have heard or read plenty of stories about the concentration camps during World War 2. They were brutal places to live. Many didn’t live. Many of you may have seen, “Schindler’s List,” with it’s graphic display of those places. Many of the guards were insanely brutal to the people. They were often, utterly inhuman in their treatment of the prisoners. They would beat and humiliate the prisoners at every opportunity. Corrie Ten Boon suffered through a concentration camp, with one particular guard that was especially brutal. Corrie hated that guard.

After the war, Corrie was free and spent her time making speeches and telling her story. At one of her speeches, the guard she hated greeted her:

“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ he said. ‘To think that , as you say, He has washed my sins away!’

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile. I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give your forgiveness.

As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.” The Hiding Place 35th Edition, pp. 247-248

As I read the passage, I realized how true Corrie’s statement was. When God commands us to love our enemies, love the unlovable, resist that sin, forgive those who have wronged us, God does it through us. Like Corrie says, “When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”

I have seen Christians try and do things in their own power and might. Some seem to have more power and might than others. But they eventually run out of steam. They burn out. God’s power and might never burns out. He asks us to rely on Him.

One of my favorite verses is Matthew 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

That verse basically sums up what Corrie Ten Boom learned-we don’t do it ourselves. God does it through us. When He asks us to take His yoke upon us, He is essentially saying, hook up to me. That is what a yoke is. Farmers used to yoke oxen together. They would take older and stronger oxen and yoke them to a younger oxen, so the older one could teach the younger one. When you are yoked to the God of the universe what could go wrong? He will do the forgiving through you-He provides the forgiveness. He will do the loving through you-He provides the love. And when you allow God to work through you-you find rest for your soul. Let Him who is capable work through you. Corrie was not able to forgive and love the guard, but God did it through her and gave the love she needed through her. We would do well to follow her example.

I am always amazed at people who can learn a language. Our Sunday school teacher, learned Russian and Greek. He was called as a missionary to go to Russia, and teach Russian students Greek. So he was speaking in Russian, teaching the Russian students, Greek. Seriously, how do you do that?

In college, I saved my Spanish classes for the very last minute. Meaning, I had to take three semesters of Spanish, and didn’t start taking those classes until my spring semester of my junior year. Yeah, I know, brilliant planning on my part. I didn’t leave any room for failure. If I wasn’t doing well in the class, I couldn’t drop the class and take it another time. And I certainly didn’t want to stay past my four years in college. I just couldn’t afford it. Well I took my first semester in Spanish and did okay. Okay, meaning, I didn’t flunk the class.

I enrolled in my second semester Spanish class in the fall semester of my junior year. Apparently I wasn’t alone in my difficulty in learning a new language. Shortly after our class started, our Spanish teacher confronted the whole class. She said we were all flunking the class. (At least I wasn’t alone in this). She said there was one week left to legally drop a class without it affecting our grade point average. She had a plan for us. She was going to give us a test. If we passed the test, we’d probably pass the class. If we didn’t pass the test, then we should seriously consider dropping the class and taking it another time. She would administer the test to us and then meet with each of us individually, to make a decision about the class. Ack. This wasn’t part of my plan. I couldn’t afford to take the class at a later time. I needed to graduate that spring. Okay, I needed to buckle down and try really hard with this test she was going to give us.

Well I did buckle down and studied really hard for that Spanish test. That’s all I did for two days. I really couldn’t afford to drop the class. I studied and prayed. And then I prayed and studied. And then I studied and prayed again. The test came around. We all took the test. Then each of us had a meeting time, to meet with our professor and go over the results of the test. My meeting with the professor was 11:00am. I wasn’t quite confident in my Spanish test taking abilities, so I decided to head over to the Administration building to get an Add/Drop form. I figured I could have it handy and save myself a trip by producing it for my teacher, in case I did badly on the test. As I was walking to the Administration building and praying, a thought entered my mind. “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I literally stopped in my tracks. “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I didn’t have any faith at that moment. I was going to get the Add/Drop form because I didn’t think I did well on the test. I didn’t think all my prayers and studying really did it. I wasn’t believing that I could have passed the test. There was serious doubt in my mind. But “Faith is believing in things unseen.” I needed to believe. Right at that moment, I made an abrupt turn and walked towards my Spanish professor’s office. I wasn’t going to to get an Add/Drop form. I didn’t need it. I had prayed about it. I had studied for the test. “Faith is believing in things unseen.”

I showed up to my appointment on time. My professor greeted me and had me sit down. She asked me how I thought I did on the test. I said I think I did okay. I was believing in things unseen. I didn’t have an Add/Drop form on me as a testament to my lack of faith. She smiled at me. Well Wendy… I waited. “You got the highest grade in the class! You got a 96% on the test!” I wanted to cry at that moment. I wanted to scream and raise my hands up in the V formation of victory. “You got the highest grade in the class!” kept singing in my head. I couldn’t stop smiling. I got the highest grade in the class! Wow! I thanked the Lord in my head. The professor said I could stay in the class and I would most likely pass it. Alrighty then. I thanked the Lord again in my head. I kept thanking the Lord in my head. I still wanted to cry, but I didn’t.

God is good ALL THE TIME. Not some of the time. Not every once in awhile. God is good ALL THE TIME. That moment when He reminded me that “Faith is believing in things unseen,” He was asking me, “Do you believe? If you believe, show Me.” I simply obeyed, and made an abrupt change and turned around and headed in the other direction without the Add/Drop form. I was making a declaration that yes I believed after all my prayers and studying that I could pass that Spanish class. I’ll have you know, I did pass that class, took the third class, passed that class too and graduated in four years. God is good…All THE TIME.

Iam from Alaska. I’m from a small town in the Bristol Bay area, which is also the number one sockeye salmon industry. Growing up I spent my summers: catching salmon, picking the salmon (out of the net), gutting salmon, smoking salmon, canning salmon, eating salmon…catching more salmon. My hands smelled like fish ALL the time. I like salmon. I like what they are about. I like eating them too.

Salmon are fiercely single minded. They do one thing in life, spawn in the exact spot they hatched in. They swim back up to Alaska. They swim fast and defensively. They have to avoid: sharks, killer whales, seals, bears, and fishermen. They swim and they swim with the one purpose in mind, THEY MUST RETURN to where they were hatched.

Wild salmon (notice I made a distinction there) is an excellent source of protein. Wild salmon (those fish that would clear mountain tops to get back home) have no time to catch nasty things like: mercury or bacteria. It’s like the story, “You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread man!” Well you can’t catch the salmon because they are on a mission. Unlike, their farmed counterparts that sit in stewed puddles, festering in filth, these guys are strong swimmers. They aren’t pausing to take a break. Picture this fish, swimming with all of it’s might and fast as they can: through the ocean, rivers, and streams. In all the hundreds of salmon I gutted, there were no worms in any of them. Nothing bad sticks to them; they swim too fast. I’m telling you, these guys push themselves as hard as they can to go back and spawn where they were hatched. They are clean and mean. They don’t dillydally along. They are single minded creatures. They are like the marathon athletes of the ocean. They aren’t messing around.

Did you know there was a difference between eating wild salmon and farmed salmon? When the “experts” tell us that salmon is a super food, they’re talking about the wild salmon. They are NOT talking about the farmed salmon. Farmed salmon haven’t had to dodge bigger animals looking at them as a meal. Those salmon are not getting leaner or stronger, they are just sitting. That really isn’t good. I can tell the difference between the meat of a farmed salmon and wild salmon. The wild salmon meat is really red, not pale like the farmed. Wild salmon have so much flavor. Farmed salmon are pale and flavorless. You see the wild salmon is out doing what he was created to do – swim fast and furious back to his birthplace. In contrast, the farmed salmon is just sitting in ponds, getting no exercise and absorbing anything floating in it’s icky water. Salmon aren’t meant to be caged like that. It does something terrible to the fish. It changes it, so it’s not the super food people think it is.

We can learn a lot from the salmon. God asks us to be single minded in our walk with Him. God says it’s good for us to be single minded. Like the salmon (who are so singular minded), we will get stronger and leaner. Or, we can live like the farmed salmon. Those filthy fish stewing in their own juices. In our Christian walk, we would do well to follow the wild salmon. If we were singular in our thoughts of God, singular in our following Him, and singular in getting to where we need to be as Christians, wow-what a world this would be. The singular minded Christian would become strong and lean. There would be power in what we did.

It’s better than the other option – the farmed salmon. If we just sit as Christians and don’t do anything like read our Bibles and pray we’ll become bad like the farmed salmon. We won’t be as good as we can be. We just can’t. Like the farmed salmon, we are just sitting, going nowhere. And like the farmed salmon we become weak, prone to illness (sin).

God asks us not to be double minded.

James 1:7-8 “For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

God wants us to think like the salmon. He wants us to be THAT single minded. He wants our concentration to be only on one thing-Him. My old pastor used to say this all the time, “The main thing is to keep the Main Thing, the main thing.” Meaning, we have to keep God as our main focus. He is the Main Thing. Be like the wild salmon in their singular quest to return to where they were hatched, to spawn and die. They let nothing stop them until they are killed or they reach their birth place. I’m not saying go spawn and die. I am saying, be single minded, focusing only on God and become a clean, lean, Christian fighting machine.

This past Thursday I opened my Facebook to face the top post on my feed: a suicide note written by a Christian guy I follow – Molotov Mitchell. It was a long note. He started it with the words, “Slow Death.” Then he goes on to say that his marriage has ended and lists out reasons it happened. His number one reason was that he had an extramarital affair. I kept reading the long note, not knowing where it was going. I wasn’t sure if it was some kind of sick joke or for real. In his last paragraph he talks about choosing a method of dying, so that he could die slowly while praying. He supported his choice to kill himself because Sampson and Saul both killed themselves. He also rationalized it by saying he couldn’t support his daughter as well as he thought he should, therefore, it was better if he was gone, then to stick around.

I was dumbstruck when I read this. I couldn’t believe that it was really real. I scrolled down, after the note, to see people talking about someone saving him. Apparently, this was all real. He did try and kill himself. He slit his wrists. By the time, people got to him, he’d lost 50% of his blood. They did catch him in time, rushed him into surgery and sewed him back up. He is expected to make a full recovery.

A Christian trying to commit suicide? That doesn’t jive. He claims to be a Christian. Only God knows if he truly is. But if he’s a Christian, how did he get to this point? How did he get so low, that now he felt his only solution to his problems was to off himself? As a Christian, we know we are only on this planet for a really short time. We also know that WE WILL FACE PROBLEMS on this planet. WE WILL HURT. WE WILL CRY. GOD IS THE ROCK WE LEAN ON during these times.

Last week I discussed the enemy. The enemy is on the prowl. If we as Christians, let our guard down at any point, the enemy WILL pounce. The Apostle Paul talks over and over in the New Testament about keeping our guard up

1 Peter 5:8 “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6 “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”

Ephesians 6:11 “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.”

I could fill this whole post with verses warning us about the devil. CHRISTIAN, if you didn’t realize it now, WE HAVE AN ENEMY. Don’t think for a second that we don’t. And if we start drifting away from the Bible and prayer, you’ve just made yourself weaker. You have now become the wounded animal in the herd. The enemy sees you and he’s not going to resist pouncing on you.

The enemy is brutal. The enemy doesn’t play fair. When you’re down, he’ll kick you. When you are up, he’ll push you down and then kick you. He throws punches at you with brass knuckles. He’s underhanded and sneaky. He’ll razzle dazzle you and while you are watching the show, he’s pulling something that will bite you in the end. He is our dark enemy who has a maniacal urge to wipe you off the face of the earth.

I’m not trying to be sensational here. IT IS A FACT. The enemy is out there. And if you are a Christian, he is out to get you. When we became Christians, we didn’t join a lovely picnic. We signed up for war. We were issued a sword – the Bible, armor – Ephesians 6:11, and a guide – the Holy Spirit. Through the Bible, we are given directions on what to do to fight the enemy, how to protect ourselves, and what to do to keep from getting wounded. There’s not time to lollygag around. There’s not time to drink tea and take a breather. We can’t afford to. We can’t sit on the sidelines and watch. This is war. The enemy is prowling like a roaring lion.

How did this Christian man get so low as to attempt suicide? I think he drifted. He drifted away from the Bible and prayer, which is ultimately your relationship with Jesus Christ. Like I said before, when you drift, you become the weak animal in the herd. We are in the last days. It feels like the enemy has turned up the volume, raised the ante. He’s going for his last hurrah. WE AS CHRISTIANS HAVE TO BE AWARE OF THE ENEMY AND BE ON GUARD. We can’t let pride, laziness, or sin of any kind to take over our lives. We can’t drift away from the ROCK. We can’t afford to. Jesus Christ is our rock and salvation. Stay close to Him or you WILL get hurt.