“…I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call
on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they
will say, ‘The LORD is our God.’” Zechariah 13:9
In 2004, my colleague and friend Dr. Jim Cunningham was in Ethiopia teaching
Standing Strong Through the Storm (SSTS). His teaching assignments took him to
the far western province of Gambella where many Christians of the Anuak tribe
had been killed in recent fighting. The believers there told him about one of
their pastors, Okok Ojula, who was in prison in the capital, Addis Ababa.
Okok had been head of the Bureau of Social Rehabilitation in Gambella. He was
falsely accused of corruption and taking three million Ethiopian Birr. No
evidence was presented so the trial was moved to Addis—three days away by bus—to
a federal court. He had been sitting in jail for two years waiting for a trial
date to be set! His wife Nuno and their six children were patiently waiting back
in Gambella. They asked Jim to visit Pastor Okok in prison.
Jim went to the Administrator’s Office of the main federal prison back in
Addis to try and see Pastor Okok. “Why do you want to see him?” the
administrator asked. Jim responded, “Because I was in Gambella, met his wife
Nuno and their six children and I told them I would come and give him greetings
from them.”
He replied rather directly, “Why do YOU want to see him?” Jim looked him in
the eye and said, “Okuk is a Christian and a pastor in Gambella, I am a
Christian and a pastor in Canada. I want to meet him and pray with him!” At that
moment the administrator’s countenance changed. He turned to Jim and said, “You
may meet him next door in the Deputy Administrator’s office.”
Okuk was brought in for forty-five minutes—with coffee provided—and they
shared and prayed together! It was a great time of blessing for both men.
After three and a half years, Okuk was released from prison as a free man
completely exonerated. He then shared with Jim by mail that he had earlier
conformed his life around serving the Lord, resuming his education at the
highest level, doing research work, and other valuable good things to help
people. But he had never thought of imprisonment at any time. Time was very
precious to him and he never thought of wasting it in prison sitting under a
hostile situation. But having been in prison he learned many lessons.
Commenting about Moses’ burning bush, he said, “Prison to me, is a place
where the Lord can appear to us in flames of fire to refine us—but never ‘burn
us up.’ I see that the Lord is more concerned with our perfection
obtained through walks in all levels of patience, endurance, character, and hope
in order to expel fear and self-centeredness in our lives—and prepare us to see
and believe that He is God Almighty as He appeared to Moses. He intends for us
not to put Him in our little box to use Him as an instrument to suit our release
from the prison. [Rather] patience, endurance, character, and hope have to
finish their work to perfection.”
RESPONSE: Today I will accept that God may have to put me through the
refiner’s fire to perfect me.
PRAYER: Lord, build patience, endurance, character and hope into my life
in Your way and purpose.
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