today i found out about this pastor in Iran - Yousef Nadarkhani - who, as we speak might be living the last few hours of his life because he refuses to deny that he's a christian.
this man has a wife, he has two children, and his family is being torn apart over this.
it seriously broke my heart.

sometimes i think we might be missing the point of christianity a little bit.
I mean we talk about not being Sunday christians, and so we go to church and then we try to live our lives as best as we can monday to saturday before returning to church on sunday content with our efforts.
but there's people like Pastor Yousef all over the world every day, being murdered or abused, or risking their life just so that they can believe in God, and bring glory to him, and most of the time we don't even know about them.

don't get me wrong, i think its awesome, and have so much respect for the people who stand up in their schools and make a difference, or the people we hear about who have the faith to step out and say their testimony at school, or pray for somebody in the common room. and its seriously amazing!! But every day in the world there are these people who stand in front of authorities, and risk tearing their family apart, or losing their life. All for Jesus. all behind the scenes. all where nobody knows about it. they are the ones that inspire me.

when i was in Vietnam in April, i went over to help them, but soon realised they had a lot more to teach me than i could help them with in a week.
i remember lying in bed listening, as the missionaries at YWAM where we were staying had to shut all the windows, and all the doors before singing praise and worship songs in case somebody heard them and they got reported.
i remember hearing about how they weren't allowed to teach people about Jesus directly, but they had devoted their entire lives to serving others in the hope that people would find Jesus not through their words, but their actions.
i remember listening as one of the missionaries talked about a tribe who found Jesus, but had this awesome, unique way of worshiping God because, though they were now christian, they'd been brought up doing certain things and that was their culture and their identity. but they managed to find Christ through that.
it's crazy to leave that poverty stricken environment, and walk back into church. it's awesome to be home, but its important to never forget.

he is everywhere. and its really easy to forget how big the world is, and that though our life is so important, so is everybody elses. our God is good, but its too easy sometimes to turn a blind eye to whats going on in the world.

and i am no way saying that we're not doing a good job living for Jesus.
i'm just saying.. its really easy to become so focused on our own lives, that maybe just sometimes... we do miss the point of it all.