This
is actually a book title and because of the unusual use of the word, insanity,
I decided to check the book out of my church library. Written by Nik Ripken
(not his real name), the book chronicles a journey of faith, despair, and renewed
perception.
Nik
and his family went to Somalia to try to alleviate the starvation and need
after the civil war totally destroyed the infrastructure there. That
experience, in itself, was a huge learning experience for the family, but a more bitter life lesson they received came in the form of one of their sons dying from
a bizarre physical anomaly.
The
family returned to the US, pretty much broken, looking for restoration of hope
and a healing of emotional wounds—not just for the loss of their son, but for
the persecuted believers they were leaving behind.
After
searching for information/help to sustain the persecuted church, Nik was led to
visit believers in Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries as the
Iron Curtain had recently come down and believers were experiencing freedom
that most had not known during their lifetime. He discovered awesome testimonies
of God’s power among His people.
Then
Nik went to China, where all his meetings had to be held in secret. There he
discovered confirmation that—catch this—God is doing today what He had done in the past, in Bible times. People being
healed, people being resurrected from the dead, and miraculous provision of
everyday needs. (See Joel 2:28-29)
He
took part in a secret conference of house group leaders, pastors, and evangelists
as they prayed, getting up before the sun rose and praying for their persecuted
brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. Nik wrote, “it’s no wonder
the Church in China has increased from several hundred thousand to an estimated
several hundred million.”
The
anecdotal section ends with the story of a young Muslim woman who miraculously
came to Christ. She eventually ended up in the US and was visiting the
Ripkenns’ church one Sunday when an entire family was being baptized. Nik could
tell she was agitated as she watched and he asked her what was wrong. “Why are
we all not standing and shouting praises to God,” she asked. “I never
thought I would see such a miracle as an entire family being baptized and no one
being shot or killed.”
That
statement led Nik to realize the “common-day” miracles that he (and we) take
for granted: having your own Bible
(those Chinese pastors were grateful to have one Bible with various pages of
Scripture handed out to each to preach from until another Bible could be had);
sharing the Lord’s Supper/Holy Communion with fellow believers; singing praise
songs/hymns out loud. There were more but you get the idea.
Another
thing Nik learned was that almost all believers have the choice as to whether to obey Christ (worship with others, share
Christ, etc.).However, the choice to obey
God in doing so comes at a much higher price in some places than in others,
hence what we call persecution.
This
book certainly presents “food for thought” and the fact that it is written in
excellent storyteller style makes it easy to read—not necessarily easy to act
upon. This book can be purchased at Christianbook.com
or if you live in the Elko area, you can check it out of our church library. It
is definitely worth reading.
