Reflections on Being Garbage, Part One

Well, I'm back. We had some wonderful times of spiritual refreshing the past couple of days. Thanks for all of your prayers. One of the things we decided to do was to turn the TV off for a couple of days. It's amazing how much time you have when you stop watching television. To fill some of the time, I finished a book that I had been working on: Shusaku Endo's Silence. It was one of the best books I've read in a long time.

The story centers around a Jesuit missionary to Japan during the devastating persecutions of Christians in that country during the early-1600's. He's captured and is tortured for his faith. I won't spoil it. Just read it. It's good.

Anyway, the story really connected with something that I had been reading in Scripture. In 1 Corinthians 4, Paul speaks at length about the sufferings that he's had to endure as an apostle of Christ. Toward the end of these descriptions he says that he has been made the "refuse of the world." But, he is undaunted because he has suffered it all for the sake of the elect.

This passage combined with Endo's story raise a great question in my mind. Am I willing to be trod upon as Jesus was? It's hard to answer that in an American Christian culture that fumes and protests at any attempt to take away our rights as believers. The Gospel reality though is that those who follow Christ also follow in His sufferings. Are we willing to be called garbage for Jesus' sake? That's a tough question. Anyway, I would love to hear anyone's thoughts on this.