Deeply Troubled

Acts 17:16-34 tells of a day that the Apostle Paul spent walking around Athens, which was a city full of idols. Verse 16 (NLT) says he was deeply troubled as he saw what the people were worshiping. It’s hard to understand that passage . . . until you spend a day walking around a city full of idols. James and I spent last Friday doing just that. “Deeply troubled” describes the feeling. Our hearts ached.

I didn’t get these photos from the internet. I took them myself, one by one, with my own camera, and these are only a handful of the hundreds of idols we saw that day. I grieved as I watched people bowing to the ground in front of fearful images. We were with some of our Nepali graduates who came from Hindu backgrounds. I asked one of them, “How do you feel, watching this?” He answered, “My people are dead, but they don’t know they are dead. And it makes me so sad.”

I’ve spent the last eight days with our graduates who work in this city full of idols. We’ve spent hours talking, praying, and working together. In the midst of the oppressiveness, I keep coming back to Acts 17:16-34. I’m so glad that we serve a God not made by human hands, the Lord of heaven and earth, the one who made the world and everything in it. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and He satisfies every need. What an awesome God we serve!