Insanity of God by Nik Ripken

Author:Nik Ripken
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography and Autobiography, Religious
ISBN: 9781433678646
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2012-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Now many years later, I listened as Dmitri told his story of his own unspeakable suffering and God’s steady faithfulness. I found myself thinking of a time in Somalia when I envisioned creating some discipleship materials that might help believers in places of persecution, believers like Dmitri. What a ridiculous idea that seemed now. What could I possibly ever teach this man about following Jesus? Absolutely nothing!

I was overwhelmed by what I had just heard. I held my head in my hands. I cried out in my heart: Oh God, What do I do with a story like this? I have always known of your power—but I have never seen your power on display like this!

Lost in my own thoughts, I realized that Dmitri was still speaking. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I apologized, “I wasn’t listening!”

Dmitri dismissed my concern with a small shake of his head and a wry smile. “That’s okay,” he told me. “I wasn’t talking to you.” He went on to explain, “When you arrived this morning, God and I were discussing something; your visit interrupted that. So right now, when I saw that you were busy with your own thoughts, the Lord and I went back to finishing that conversation.”

In that moment, I knew what I had to ask next.

“Brother Dmitri, would you do something for me?” I asked. I hesitated to continue, but his eyes moved me forward: “Would you sing that song for me?”

Dmitri pushed himself up from the table. He stared into my eyes for three or four seconds. Those seconds felt like an eternity to me. He turned slowly toward the east. He stiffened his back to stand at attention. He lifted his arms and began to sing.

I don’t know Russian, so I didn’t understand a single word of his song. But I didn’t need to. The words probably didn’t matter. As Dmitri raised his arms and his voice in praise and sang that song that he had sung every morning in prison for seventeen years, the tears began to flow down both of our faces. Only then did I begin to grasp the meaning of worship and the importance of HeartSongs.

I had come to Russia looking for answers—wondering if faith could survive and even grow in the world’s most hostile environments. Dmitri became one of my first guides on my journey. I began to sense that 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.

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