The Insanity of God

Sometimes when I read the Bible I long for the days when Jesus and the early disciple walked on the earth. How exiting it would have been to hear Jesus speak and see him perform miracles. Even after His ascension, Jesus’s presence through the Holy Spirit continues through the book of Acts. He speaks to people, heals, and saves in miraculous ways.

But that was then.

And this is now.

Right?

Maybe not.

Maybe the same power of the Holy Spirit is at work today around the world, particularly in places where following Christ comes at a high cost—a cost we as Americans cannot comprehend. 

In places where jobs, homes, families, and freedom can be taken in an instant, Christianity is thriving. Jesus is calling people to know Him, revealing Himself in miraculous ways, and sustaining believers through unbelievable persecution. (See The Voice of The Martyrs for more about the persecuted church and how you can help.)

In his book, The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken sets out to answer the question, “Is Jesus worth it?”

After a disheartening experience in missions during the Somalian Civil War, including personal loss of his own, Nik wonders if Christianity can survive in such hostile places. He sets out to find ways of discipling believers in such circumstances with plans to write a curriculum to help them, but finds Jesus instead—Jesus real and active in the lives of Christians in hard places. Places where a prison term is the real “seminary” education. 

The first half of the book describes Ripken’s experiences in Somalia. It is good, and eye opening, but the last half both challenged and inspired my faith. Ripken travels the world interviewing Christians who have served Christ through persecution. In these place, Jesus still speaks directly to His followers, heals people, and miraculously saves the hopeless.

In one of my favorite stories in the book, Ripken recounts his trip to a Muslim country in which five Muslim men who had miraculously found Jesus through dreams, visions, and other amazing ways, also were miraculously led to meet Ripken at the airport. After hearing their stories and contemplating the Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts (Acts 8:26-40), Ripken writes, “Reading from the book of Acts that evening was a completely new experience. Two thoughts stayed in my mind: this is what God did then and this is what God does now. Suddenly, my modern world didn’t look all that different than the world of the Bible.”

The Insanity of God will help you remember that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). It will make you wonder why we do not often see the direct working of the Holy Spirit and give you a greater longing to see such work. 

My husband and pastor, who is not an avid reader, read this book in just a couple days. Now we keep a few copies on the shelf to give away for others in the church and community to read. I lead a study of this book in a homeschool book club for ages 12 and up.

It’s that good.

Its message is that important. 

Of the faithful, persecuted believers Ripken writes, “God may actually want to use them to save us from the often debilitating, and sometimes spiritually-fatal, effects of our watered-down, powerless western faith.”

Wow! Such a powerful, convicting statement! (See One Easy Way to Increase Your Faith for more about growing in faith.) God, forgive our complacency!