Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall…famine…? Romans 8:35d
The question asked is a personal one. Not “what” can separate us but “who”?
The inference is our enemy, Satan, who tries every tactic he can garner to make
us think we can be separated from Christ’s love. Today we look at his tactic of
“famine.”
Wilson Chen from Vietnam spent five years in one of those harsh and primitive
re-education camps. He was forced to spend long hours of hard backbreaking work
clearing jungles for farmland, cutting trees for lumber and farming the fields.
He had looked forward to a successful secular career and also to marrying his
lovely girlfriend. In his final year in camp, he received the crushing news that
his girlfriend had given up hope, married another and escaped from Vietnam.
The camp food was barely enough to keep him alive. “The constant brutality
attacked our minds and spirits; the malnutrition attacked our bodies,” he
recalls. The constant hunger drove them to eat anything. He would search the
ground with other prisoners for rats, toads, worms, snakes, insects and birds to
supplement their diet and keep them alive and to simply ease the feeling of
constant hunger.
Wilson remembers companions who went insane from the pressure of hunger.
Others committed suicide. Many died from diseases caused by the
malnutrition.
That very night they were subjected to mental torture and political
indoctrinat. Always in their minds were thoughts of escape. But Wilson Chen
says, “It was hope in the Lord Jesus that kept me alive. I fed this hope by
secretly reading the Scriptures...” In that camp situation, Wilson promised the
Lord that he would serve him if he ever received the opportunity. The Holy
Spirit whispered to him, “You have opportunities right here!” Very soon three
fellow-prisoners came to know the Lord.
Camp experiences helped him reflect on the significance of the sufferings of
Jesus. In that context he found refreshment and exhilaration in his own
weakness. And he says, “...Jesus gave me peace in the midst of tribulation.”
RESPONSE: I will live this day aware that famines can never separate me
from Christ’s love.
PRAYER: Thank you Lord that You give peace in the midst of
tribulations.