Stories From The Field: Great Commission Strength During Hardship

Too often, we can be so overwhelmed with the hardship and suffering we are facing that we cannot see a path forward. We are stuck, and we have seemingly entered a dead-end street. Yet these might be the exact conditions that God works through for His purposes and our good. You might ask, "How can anything good be found in such terrible circumstances?" Viewed on its own merit, human suffering at any level is heartbreaking and not good. It is terrible and is the hallmark of our broken and sinful world. Yet it is often in these terrible times it is possible for good to be found, the only possible good. And that good is that God turns many hearts, even our hearts, more deeply to Him in those terrible days. This defies human logic and our emotions! Yet good can be found when hardship is the exact condition through which God opens eyes to the gospel and the hope of heaven. God becomes our anchor in the storm. This does not mean the storm gets less intense, in fact, it might become greater in following Christ. But it does mean in the worst of times, the hope of heaven can be found, and we can find peace in Christ when no other peace can be found. It is this good that can be found in bad times.

Pastor Alexander is in Ukraine and has spoken to many who have endured great hardship. Yet, in the midst of all the horror brought upon the people in Ukraine, God continues to be at work. The people are seeing it, and good can be found. Alexander shares:

"For the fourth month, the war has been going on in our country. People continue to die, houses are being destroyed, and millions of people are forced to seek shelter. By the grace of God, it is quiet in our region, although there is a constant threat of rocket attacks, so from time to time, we hear air raid sirens. To the surprise of the whole world, we ourselves are surprised and rejoice that the Lord protects Ukraine, and the plans of the enemy are being destroyed. The Russian occupiers did not manage to capture Kyiv and the northern part of the country, and this gives us the opportunity to live in freedom because my generation and the elders still remember well the Soviet times, when people were forbidden to visit the church and read the Word of God. And it is precisely this godless ideology that is promoted by the Russian authorities in the occupied territories of Ukraine. So, we still have freedom and, accordingly, the opportunity to freely bring the gospel to people. Although this time is difficult, it is valuable in its own way, and there is a special value in the fact that people are looking for the Lord.”

It is unthinkable in a worldly sense that the senseless destruction of human life is redeemable. But Alexander rightly sees what men mean for evil, God is using to turn many hearts to Him for their good.

There are many stories that Alexander shares of how he has seen God working in lives suffering greatly in these days of war. He tells another:

‍"Nadia came to us from Severodonetsk. At one of the prayer meetings, she tearfully said that her children and grandchildren were still under fire, and we prayed together. After some time, the children evacuated and one of the daughters, whose name is Vika, came to us with her family and also began to attend worship services and our meetings. In three months, they began to pray by themselves, began to read the Gospel, completed a simple course on studying the Bible, and began to testify that they came to know Christ. Vika's husband did not come all this time, but in the last days, he came and, in a personal conversation, began to thank me and told me with admiration that his wife had changed and their family relations had improved, and he himself began to be interested in God and His Word. Another family of eight came to us from Bakhmut, they stayed with us for only a week, but during this time, they became interested in Christian literature and asked many questions. One day they asked if I could say a prayer for their mother, who had already died several years ago. It was a surprise to me because we evangelical believers do not pray for the dead. But the Lord gave me an idea based on their request to talk to them about eternity. After this conversation, the two women prayed, asking the Lord to forgive their sins and that He would give them eternal life.”

‍Whether it is the hardship of the war or grieving the loss of a loved one, all are opportunities to shine the light of the gospel, the light of hope, in the middle of dark days. We can be confident in the hardest days that God is working in them to both draw His children into greater dependency on Him and turn distant hearts to Jesus in saving faith.