On Prophets and Martyrs

Can you imagine
if you opened your mouth
or picked up your pen
and in your native accent,
or your peculiar handwriting,
God spoke--
but when people turned to look
all they heard was your voice
and all they saw was the
funny way you made your T's?
"Surely I was mistaken, I
could have sworn I heard God
speak, but it is just you that
I see here, surely I was mistaken."

What if some of the people
were used to God hiding in such
earthen forms
but others couldn't see it, or
didn't like it and wanted
God to come out in the open
and show Himself in His Own Form
or, really, the form they preferred
instead of yours.

What if some people heard what
you said,
or accepted what you wrote
but others just ignored it,
or got mad, really mad,
and blamed you.
Called you names. Lied.
Misunderstood on purpose.
Misunderstood your heart and
God's heart.
Made it hard to keep witnessing
or speaking
or writing,
Made it hard by hurling
insults or by
hurling rocks.

"Have they not known?
Have they not heard?"

Had they known they would
not have killed the Lord of
Glory
who then rose up, yes, rises up,
strong and alive in
a thousand different voices,
in a myriad of pens,
which can never really be silenced--
for the voices of the martyrs, and
of the prophets,
always and forever
cry out.

Their words echo, echo, echo:
"Our God is the Lord!
His Christ the Victor!"

Here is the life and death of His martyrs.
His witnesses. His prophets.
Here is the Head of the Church
glorified in
His Body.

Pray for the persecuted church.
Pray for the prophets.
Pray for the witness and the
witnesses of the Gospel of our God.

persecuted Christians,
witnessing
evangelism
the persecuted church,