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WHY AREN’T WE ALL… HERE?

We’ve just returned from an incredible week up in Estes Park teaching at the 2016 Colorado Christian Writer’s Conference (CCWC) and I’m wiped out. Exhausted. Plum beat.

But it was an amazing time and worth it. So many wonderful people poured into me over the past twenty years as I was learning this craft and it is an honor to now give back to others who are on the journey. I taught the Fiction Intensive Clinic and also a session at Teens Write and Kayla taught at Teens Write.

But this post isn’t about the beautiful mountains and scenery up at the conference, the incredible classes, or even the precious people — I’ve had something else on my heart for a bit and I’ve been “chewing” on it and want to share with you.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed reading Joel Rosenberg’s books. A lot. I love his blog. I love his heart. Love that he moved his whole family to Israel. (You can check out more about him here http://www.joelrosenberg.com/) My favorite of all his books is The Invested Life – but I will talk about that one another time.

One of Joel’s recent novels is The Auschwitz Escape. His only historical fiction (so far) and the title is pretty self-explanatory. What I found so profound in this book was not just the chilling story (based on true stories!) of the Auschwitz death camp, but the challenge to all believers. About mid-way through the story, at the end of a chapter, a question jumped off the page at me…

“…if you ask me, the question shouldn’t be ‘Why are you, a Christian, here in a death camp, condemned for trying to save Jews?’ The real question is ‘Why aren’t all the Christians here?’” (from Joel Rosenberg’s The Auschwitz Escape)

Wow. Think about that one for a minute. The context was the Nazi Germany death camp, but I think it can be applied to us today. Why aren’t all the Christians in church? Why aren’t all the Christians helping the poor? Why aren’t all the Christians taking in orphans and widows? Why aren’t all the Christians standing firm on the Word of God? Why aren’t all the Christians working together? Why aren’t all the Christians… here? Present. In the here and now. Loving on people with God’s love. Sharing the gospel. It’s a heavy thought, but one worth pondering. So my challenge to you is to think about that. I have to admit, when I first read those lines in that book, I thought, “Wow, would I have been one condemned to the Auschwitz death camp for trying to save Jews?” Along those same lines, a popular question has floated around social media that I think we should all ask ourselves, “If I were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me?”

Hmmm… I sure hope there would be. No doubt about it.