What I do know, though, is that I saw a man on CNN crying "Tonight, we have our freedom! Tonight, we have our freedom! Tonight, we have our freedom!"
The first thing I thought was, "Sir, have you met Jesus?"
But ceteris paribus... this man's life has changed. He feels like a new man. He has the whole world in front of him. If freedom is having nothing to lose, then this man has won.
It's interesting the power that one man can have. I don't see mass genocide with Mubarak; but I do see a masked dictatorship, rigged elections, false imprisonment, rejection of free speech, financial corruption. This one man was able to destroy lives without huge casualties; it plays along with the idea that sometimes, it's better to die than to live a life of suffering. Mubarak stepped down, and Egypt was freed tentatively. Jesus stepped up, and the world was freed forever.
I've got to give a hand to those Egyptians. Whenever I see uprisings, I'm incredibly impressed by the organization and the determination. These people had a goal in sight and saw the "bigger picture"; they put aside their differences for a cause greater than themselves. That, my friends, is humility. Too often, I see groups with a common goal... and a whole lot of side goals. I think Fuel functions like this way too much. We all agree that we want to do some event; but someone wants to see skateboarders, someone wants to speak, someone wants it to fit into their life at their convenience. We struggle to give up our own personal ambitions or reservations in order to reach our final goal. There's little to no sacrifice.
Sure, getting a profound speaker or band or comedy group is not as grand a feat nor as important as liberating an entire nation. Until we ask ourselves the purpose of the out-reach event. Is it to have fun on a Saturday afternoon? Sure, of course it is. But that's not the big picture. The goal in sight is to bring dying people to Jesus Christ. And yet, while people are teetering on the fence of life and death, we sit in a room and draw up charts that never go beyond the brainstorming phase. We never rally up our troops. We never head to our community in the masses and share the Gospel. Instead, we wait for people to come to us; we put the work on the very people that need to be saved. Instead of reaching out, we more so say "Hey, if you have time, would you mind bringing yourself over here for a couple of hours and maybe, well, if you like our light show or our music and our games enough, would you mind listening to us for a few minutes?"
I don't see Egypt saying to Mubarak "Will you come over for dinner, and maybe we'll bring up freedom by dessert. We'll play cards and whatnot, you know, get you on our good side. Then maybe, would you consider allowing us to live?"
No. I see them attacking their goal with purpose in every step.
They rally by the thousands. We huddle in our fancy Sunday school rooms by the dozens.
They fought day and night because it was that important to them. We meet a couple of hours a week, if it fits into our lives.
They devoted their entire life to the cause. Their homes, their families, their jobs, their money, their bodies. We wrinkle our noses at the idea of contributing ten bucks.
Egypt succeeded because they saw it, wanted it, and did what they had to do to get it. We see salvation, want it, and the story ends there.
The Egyptians, overwhelmed with their emotions, cried out in public in praise of their new freedoms. When another person accepts Christ, maybe an applause will be heard.
So yes, I'm a tad irritated with myself and the rest of my church body.
Tom Brokaw stated that Egypt was not a tragedy. Arthur Miller, an American playwright, believes that "we feel a sense of tragedy when we are in the presence of someone who wants something and is ready to die to get it." Both are right. The Egyptians won - and yet for two weeks, the world felt that they were on the brink of tragedy. Are we?
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