A week ago a group of saints were arrested and imprisoned with the charge of "conversion." The matter was made known to me when one of the brothers sent me a text message from an unknown number as his phone was confiscated. The following days were filled with phone calls from different saints expressing their care and concerns, along with their anxieties and anguish about the imprisonment. I had to listen to all the calls and bear with them all. I was totally limited and helpless too concerning this case. I could do nothing. I was completely limited.
But what I could do, I did not hesitate a bit. I did my part to the best of my ability. My part was to coordinate with the local brothers in Mathura and connect them with the brothers overseeing the legal matter of dealing with lawyers and working on the legal procedure of bailing the brothers out as soon as possible. I had to make a lot of calls and received a lot of calls back and forth to handle this legal process. Besides, I was also warned about deleting certain emails so as to avoid unnecessary investigation from the people instigated by the enemy to thwart the work of God. For a couple of days, I was also in "tension", talking to the brothers and understanding the legal process of doing things in the proper way. I also had to explain it to the brothers who did not understand the matter well. However, my function did not go beyond this call coordination. I accepted my limitations and stayed with them.
Even on the day the brothers imprisoned were allowed to meet, I was advised not to go though I planned to. I had no choice but to be limited by the brother's fellowship. So I had to make group calls and fellowship with the saints the reason I could not go to see the brothers in prison though in human opinion I should have gone. I learned to be limited and restricted according to the brothers' fellowship. Besides, when a matter came up again to get a brother's car, I was again advised not to go as it may cause unnecessary tracking by some local opposers of the gospel who caused trouble already in imprisoning our brothers. So I learned to be limited and had to deal with my social media activities as well, taking all precautionary measures.
For the same reason, a Lord's Day meeting has to be canceled though I personally would not vouch for cancellation. I learned to be limited by the brothers' fellowship. As suggested, I also cleared up the meeting hall of all free items that can be easily misinterpreted as evidence for "conversion" in case some opposers come to investigate. So certain files had to be deleted, certain documents had to be burned off, certain propagation names had to be wiped off, and official data backup was done with whatever safety measures required were taken. Even in all these things, I learned to be restricted in following the brother's fellowship and advice. Anything can happen at any time. So, precautions must be taken and be limited in all possible ways. This was altogether a new experience of the Lord in limitation. These experiences were needed too for my spiritual all-inclusive learning.
The Lord sovereignly allowed things to happen the way they were to lead us in a new direction and to perfect us with new learning. Ultimately, all that transpired has turned out to be for good as far as God's purpose is concerned. And in the process, I have been trained in learning to experience Him amidst restriction and limitation.
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