The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected

by Nik Ripken

reported the response to me: “Unfortunately, that little girl died.”

How is it, I wondered, that so many people are willing to die for financial or humanitarian reasons while many Christian groups insist on waiting until it is safe to obey Jesus’ command to “Go” into all the world?

“Well, it appears to me,” I told them, “that you all have created a ‘call’ to missions that allows people to be disobedient to what Jesus has already commanded all of us to do.”

In the time since he had last walked down this street, the young mother had died!

I knew that Omar had witnessed many scenes that were more shocking than the one he encountered that day. But when people are forced to deal with a daily barrage of human suffering and inhumane violence, the emotional response is never predictable. Sometimes, it is possible to remain calm and relatively detached. At other times, sometimes without warning, the dam breaks and there is emotional turmoil. The trigger for these emotional floods is not always dramatic. It might be something as simple as seeing yet another orphaned baby. At other times, it is the cumulative result of countless microscopic nicks and cracks caused by the constant reminders of brokenness all around. Sometimes we would be moved most by small deeds of kindness or tenderness.

Tragedy of seeing so much loss. True also in healthcare.

If sharing with a friend could lead to my friend’s death—will I share my faith anyway? And am I willing to live with what might happen next?

finally understood how Jesus’ disciples must have felt on that dark, despairing Saturday between the cross and the empty tomb. Even in my own dark time, I did not doubt the depth of Jesus’ love in His willingness to die for me on the cross. And, even in my dark time, I did not doubt Jesus’ resurrection. But here was my struggle: I couldn’t see the relevance or the power of Jesus’ resurrection in Somalia. I couldn’t point to any evidence of good overcoming evil. I couldn’t see where love was overcoming hate.

paper, as tiny as he

At that same moment, a thousand kilometers away his family—Dmitri’s wife, his children who were growing up without him, and his brother—sensed through the Holy Spirit the despair of this man in prison. His loved ones gathered around the very place where I was sitting as Dmitri told me his story. They knelt in a circle and began to pray out loud for him. Miraculously, the Holy Spirit of the Living God allowed Dmitri to hear the voices of his loved ones as they prayed.

Dmitri was dragged from his cell. As he was dragged down the corridor in the center of the prison, the strangest thing happened. Before they reached the door leading to the courtyard—before stepping out into the place of execution—fifteen hundred hardened criminals stood at attention by their beds. They faced the east and they began to sing. Dmitri told me that it sounded to him like the greatest choir in all of human history. Fifteen hundred criminals raised their arms and began to sing the HeartSong that they had heard Dmitri sing to Jesus every morning for all of those years. Dmitri’s jailers instantly released their hold on his arms and stepped away from him in terror. One of them demanded to know, “Who are you?” Dmitri straightened his back and stood as tall and as proud as he could. He responded: “I am a son of the Living God, and Jesus is His name!”

Katya described her grandfather’s letter as sort of a spiritual last will and testament to the family. “And the very final thing he wrote at the end of his letter,” said Katya, “his very last message to the family was that we should all read and forever remember Revelation 2:10—here’s what I require of you, that you should ‘be faithful unto death.’”