IF YOU’RE SOMEONE WHO TURNS THE Light on Little Farm Road from time to time, you may be thinking “the light’s on, but there’s no one at home!” I haven’t posted since the first of the year because I’ve been busy writing – trying my hand at a new sort of story, one drawn from another’s experience in life. It’s been a learning process for me in more ways than one. Sharing a story in print, hoping to edify others, I find that I am the one learning life lessons from my subject.
LEGACY OF A CHRISTIAN MARTYR, concerns Cheryl Beckett, a young Christian woman specializing in mother-child health, who was one of the humanitarian aid workers gunned down at close range on August 6, 2010, in Afghanistan while returning home from a trip to deliver medical care. You may recall, the team had been organized by International Assistance Mission and all ten members were killed performing acts of mercy, traveling unarmed and defenseless. The Taliban claimed responsibility asserting the team members were spies and accusing them of spreading Christianity.
MY GLIMPSE INTO CHERYL’S LIFE radically transformed my notion of “preaching” the Gospel of Christ. I would never want to diminish the absolute necessity of sound doctrine when it comes to preaching the gospel or teaching from the Bible. We are, after all, admonished to study and “always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.”(1 Peter 3:15NIV) We’ve got to “know” the Word of God if we hope to bring others, by faith, to Him. But knowing is not enough; we must be able to “show” them the beauty of our Lord and the joy knowing Him has given us.
CHERYL BECKETT TAUGHT ME that we must communicate God’s love to those we long to bless with the offer of eternal life! A devoted student of the Word of God, Cheryl understood that proselytizing in a country such as Afghanistan is strictly forbidden. She traveled to Afghanistan in obedience to the call of God, serving as the “hands and feet of Jesus” to their people with the greatest need. The work that Cheryl and the medical team performed was a kind of “preaching” in itself, expressing by their actions the compassion of Christ. Only eternity will tell the story of Muslims who embraced the Truth as they witnessed her life and love.
WE MUST BE PREPARED, NOT ONLY TO TELL,
BUT TO SHOW GOD'S LOVE
