The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected

by Nik Ripken

Jesus is better than all the pleasures, possessions, and pursuits of this world put together.

neither safe nor secure.

Does God, in fact, promise His children safety? Do things always work out for those who are obedient? Does God really ask us to sacrifice—and to sacrifice everything?

who makes impossible demands and promises only His presence?

nothing in my upbringing, my education, or my professional experience had equipped me to live or work in a place like Somalia.

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?

When we pointed out that Jesus commanded His followers to go into “all the world”—not only into all “the safe places in the world,”

“If you are obedient to the Lord,” he said to both of us, “you have our blessing!”

just how important Ruth and I believed it was to do what we felt Jesus had called our family to do.

Matthew 28. When I read that chapter, I notice that Jesus never says if or whether you go; He simply talks about where you go! God may have to give instructions about the location—the where. But there is nothing to negotiate about the command to go—God has already made our primary task perfectly clear.

Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28 meant that we needed to follow the examples of the

apostles in the Book of Acts.

“How dare you say that the Somalis are not responsive to the gospel when so many of them have never heard the gospel or been given the opportunity to respond!”

Just by listening, we could restore a measure of humanity.

Many of my daily decisions determined who

lived and who died. These decisions were weighty and terrifying.

our Creator God has ultimate power over life and death. We knew that such authority was never ours to assume.

my God-given roles as husband and father were essential to my ministry too.

How will people recognize the love of Christ in us if we never tell them whose love it is that motivates us?

I felt honored to worship at the Lord’s Table with these four brothers who were willing to risk their own blood, their own bodies, and their very lives to follow Jesus among an unbelieving people group in this unbelieving country.

cost and significance of Jesus’ Last Supper

a reminder not just of our Lord’s death and sacrifice two thousand years ago, but also a reminder of His continuing and constant love, His faithfulness, and His presence in the lives of brave and faithful followers today.

And Christ died not only for you, Nik, but for every Somali in the Horn of Africa.

neither Islam nor Muslims were the real enemy here. Lostness was the enemy. The enemy was the evil that viciously misleads and traps people like lost sheep without a shepherd.

how impossible it would have been to be prepared and equipped to live in this insane world.

The editor’s conclusion was chilling: “These western Christians will not be able to watch their converts be killed. When their converts are killed, the western Christians will leave.”

we stayed because we were convinced that Jesus was still there.

God had never promised to reward obedient sacrifice with measurable success. At the same time, I wondered why our sacrifices had yielded so little.

I even wondered if maybe this problem was too big for Him.

Ruth used the word “resurrection” that night; I was fixed on the crucifixion. The pain was unbearable.

Somehow, we will do our best to honor God through even this.”

“I have walked here from Somalia. I had to come to help bury our son, Timothy.”

Why, Lord, when we are ending our work here, are their hearts finally ready to ask the right questions?

Where is the fertile ground that Jesus’ talked about in His story? I am so tired of the rocks, the hard ground, the weeds and thistles. Where in Somalia is the good soil? Is there any good soil? Could a seed ever grow here?

How can someone live the abundant, victorious life that Jesus promised in our world’s hardest places?

Can Christianity work outside of western, dressed-up, well-ordered nations?

We felt safe enough to be transparent with these college students. We warned them that if they did answer the call to serve God in some other part of the world, there would probably come a time (or many times) when family and friends, and maybe even their home churches, might question their sanity.

We encouraged the students to ask these troubling questions now, in this safe place, before making their decision about God’s call.

Those of us who have grown comfortable with the teachings of Christ have allowed His teachings to lose their edge. So much of what Jesus taught makes no sense from a human perspective. Love your enemies. If you want to be great, first learn to be a servant. If someone smacks you across the face, turn your head and let him slap you on the other side. If someone steals your coat, offer him your shirt as well. If you want to live, you need first to die to yourself. The complete list of Jesus’ crazy-sounding teachings is a lot longer than that.

I don’t know the exact reason, but those “secret” interviews felt freer, and were much more informative, than the ones that we had been permitted to do at the denominational headquarters.

Their biggest concern was the genealogy of faith.

(I almost laughed at the irony of his claim.

one of the most accurate ways to detect and measure the activity of God is to note the amount of opposition that is present. The stronger the persecution, the more significant the spiritual vitality of the believers.

This was not the kind of inspirational testimony that we love to celebrate; this was raw, biblical faith.

his isolation from the Body of Christ was more difficult than even the

physical torture.

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.

In the prison yard, he found a whole sheet of paper. “And God,” Dmitri said, “had laid a pencil beside it!”

this journey was not about developing discipleship materials, but about walking with Jesus in hard places. I felt drawn to this life that Dmitri had lived: knowing Jesus, loving Jesus, following Jesus, living with Jesus.