Sentenced for Having Bibles
As Linh Dao and her mother approached the prison, she knew what she would do. But she would have to make it look impetuous, like the act of a young girl overcome by emotion.
Linh’s father is an underground pastor in Vietnam. A year earlier, when she was ten, four police officers burst into her home and ransacked it, searching for Bibles that she had hidden in her school knapsack. Her father was arrested and sentenced to reeducation through hard labor.
As they reached the chain-link fence separating them from Linh’s father, Linh saw her opportunity. She quickly squeezed through a gap in the fence, darted to her father, and hugged him tightly. The guards watched her, surprised, but left her alone. After all, what harm could a little girl do?
Linh’s family was able to smuggle their father a small pen with which he wrote Scriptures and sermons on cigarette paper. These “cigarette sermons” were circulated from cell to cell and brought many prisoners to Christ.
Linh Dao is now an impetuous teenager who does not worry about the risk before doing what is right. Her desire is to follow in the footsteps of her father and be a preacher of the gospel. She knows firsthand the dangers of sharing her faith in Communist Vietnam and remains “impulsive” to obey Christ rather than humans.
One of the reasons believers are not more impulsive in their witness for Christ is that they hear two voices when they should only hear one. Impulsive obedience can never arise from divided attention. We hear God’s voice in our hearts immediately telling us what we should do in a certain situation. “Say it now. Share your faith.” Yet we simultaneously hear our own voice presenting all sorts of excuses. “Not now. Later. What are you doing?” God offers us an undivided heart that listens to his voice alone. When we mature in our faith, we learn that obedience comes more naturally—as impulsive as a reflex. To what voice will you listen today?
Source: Extreme Devotion which you can buy at http://www.vombooks.com
