Living on the Front Lines

I just found out yesterday that my 3rd grade daughter's teacher was kidnapped and held at gunpoint in the Philippines a couple of years ago.  She was teaching in an American school and some armed gunmen came and took her and a couple of her colleagues and held them for days. 

While this mild-mannered, soft spoken, non-pretentious women was held at gunpoint, she sang songs about Jesus!  It reminds me of Paul and Silas in prison!  Well, the locals took up a collection of money and paid off the gunmen to release them.  This is not exactly the best option as it encourages more kidnappings.

We lost a dear (young) friend a few weeks ago.  He took such risks for the gospel's sake, smuggling bibles into communist countries, teaching locals how to pastor, sharing the love of Jesus wherever he went.  He never even considered the difficulties of where he and his family had to live (which has been all over the world) in order to follow God's plan.  His focus was only on obedience to do whatever God asked....wherever that led him. 

It makes me consider all that we do and how important our friendships are.  It also reminds me that everything we have here is for just a short time.  So, live "on purpose" every day taking every opportunity to share the love of Jesus with whoever will listen!

This is what life is really about.  That's living on the front lines!