Standing Firm

I want to capture what I was feeling on the bus last Tuesday as I talked to a student named Marko. As he was sharing his view of this country, my heart broke. He has no hope of a future here. He sees all being destroyed and thus, is leaving. I think of so many similar reactions that students have to my being here: “Why in the world are you here?!?! We’re all trying to leave!!!”

Internally, my response to Marko is, “What of those who have no hope of anything different? What of those who cannot leave?” The Markos can perhaps state reality the most plainly because they have seen the rest of the world and they are not trying to deceive themselves any longer. They are soon to leave this country. They don’t have to be optimistic anymore. They can wash their hands of this situation and move on.

What of those left here?!?! When will hopelessness reach a climax? When will this country’s identity be lost in the ocean of past history?

I feel that we as the western world have been deluded into a false sense of security and peace. There is an enemy within that will one day reveal itself. Society does not make a man and the men that make society are wicked and bent on pleasing self. When pushed to it or pressed to, this identity will spring out with destructive frenzy.

I wonder if we will again see that here. World peace will never happen and I doubt if the powder keg identity and role that the Balkans have played in the last 1500 years of human history will ever change.

Jesus said that in the end times the love of many will grow cold. He said that we would hear of wars and rumors of wars. Nations will rise against nation and these are but the beginning of the birth pangs.

I don’t have much hope for the nation of Serbia. I have seen some of the strongholds that exist here and I don’t know if they will ever be torn down. But they don’t need to be. Because this is not the promised land. This is not Zion. My job is to call people to see heaven’s kingdom, to see the true promised land. To shout the warning cry of coming destruction to the people.