Men are so arrogant and love to point to their technology and colleges and monuments. But a Stalinist government still reigns in this "advanced" world. North Koreans starve. Torture and desperation have become a way of life there. Can some smart someone imagine what needs to be done?

Smart men, call on Jesus!

Some days I imagine that the persecution has come to the West. Churches are closed. Radios and TV's are confiscated. The government controls all. Wages are what Washington says they will be. No free market... and so on, add what ever other perversions come to your mind, because you cannot imagine something more horrible than what the Word says is coming to this entire world.

In the midst of all this, you offer a prayer: Father, bless me in the same way I blessed your people when they called out during their suffering! Exactly what would that mean in your life if God answered you literally?

It could mean that some well-off saint somewhere will think about you when a special speaker comes to church. Or that a hidden sister will call your name out to God. Some banker brother may try to get you some money. Others may visit you.

Christian, call on Jesus on behalf of the suffering church! Today is your day to invest.

Other days I am one of those Zinzendorf Moravians, you know, the ones who deliberately sold themselves into slavery, so as to win fellow slaves for Jesus. Yeah, that's me! I'll defect to North Korea, become a Korean somehow, and suffer alongside my brothers.

So now they have one more suffering saint, but one less person sending in offerings. Maybe that's not so good. Or so I tell myself, knowing that my imaginings are the pure fantasies of a wannabe saint. I loathe, in my flesh, the idea of physical pain and deprivation.

May God give us all the desire to call on Jesus Who is the only One who makes saints. What if God wants to make me holy by sending me to that same old job that seems to be so grievous and worthless? What if I find I can touch North Korea more here than there?

I continue to imagine but I anchor my imagination to the written Word of God so it does not soar out of control.