Grace under fire - Devotion for 6/27/07

Grace under fire – Devotion for 6/27/07

How do you react when someone is confronting you? I recognize that some of the people that read this carry around machine guns everyday, and you are probably well too acquainted with how you react when someone confronts you. But how do we react when we are being questioned about something, or being accused of something wrong? Usually our blood pressure goes up, and that natural “fight or flight” instinct kicks in as the adrenaline starts pumping. I remember that when I was going through the ordination interviews, which consisted of 4 back-to-back interviews in front of 4 different committees of 8-12 people for 45 minutes each. During these interviews, you would be interrogated regarding papers you had written answering certain questions on theology, worship, call and disciplined life, and preaching (actually, in the preaching one, they critiqued a sermon video we had to send it). For those 3 hours the mental stress would begin to get to some. And it always seemed that in each one of the interviews you needed to be ready for a curveball. I don’t know if it was planned that way or not, but it seemed that in each committee, someone would really put you on the hot spot, and begin to attack you somehow. I was told by others that this was done intentionally, as a way to see how the pastor would handle being put under pressure, especially since there might be one or two (or 300) occasions where a church member might put pressure on the pastor. Although I passed all my interviews first time through, it certainly was not without sweating a few bullets from all the questioning.

Even in that environment where I was surrounded by faithful Christian disciples who were there to support me, I certainly didn’t handle the pressure the way Stephen did in Acts. In Acts 7:54-60 we hear about the stoning of Stephen, who had been preaching and teaching the gospel. As Stephen was brought before the Sanhedrin, he answered their questions with an amazing sermon explaining Jesus through the ages. As the anger became more intense, Stephens cool seemed to grow. As the people are “gnashing their teeth at him,” Stephen looks up and proclaims, “Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). The people totally freak out, rush him, take him out of the city and stone him. Literally as the stones are being hurled upon him, the last thing that Stephen says is, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”(Acts 7:60) And then he dies. Dude, if that was me, I’m pretty sure I’d be praying something like, “God, don’t ever forget what they are doing to me! Let them have kidney stones this big!” But that wasn’t Stephen. Stephen had this amazing grace under fire. As far fetching as this may sound, we can have that same amazing grace under fire. The next time you feel you are being attacked (and it may be today) or questioned, pray that God will give you that same grace.