sissies

We are such sissies here in America.

We live our lives in relative comfort & safety, driving our oversized cars through drive-thru's, complaining about the temperature of your skinny lattes.

We are so persecuted for our faith...

     why, just the other day, someone laughed at us at work because we were a Christian,

     or a relative told us we were crazy to believe all that Jesus stuff,

     or we are not readly accepted for the terrifically superior people we are.


Paul, the apostle, enumerates some occurrences in his life because he was a Christ follower.

How many of us would still be all righteous & "sold out to God" if just ONE of these things happened to us, let alone 3 or 4, or (horrors!) all of them?!


We are such sissies here in American.



2 Corinthians 11

23b I have worked harder,

     been put in prison more often,

     been whipped times without number,

     and faced death again and again.

24 Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.

25 Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked.

Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.

26 I have traveled on many long journeys.

I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers.

I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles.

I have faced danger in the cities,

     in the deserts,

     and on the seas.

And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.

27 I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights.

I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food.

I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm.


  28 Then, besides all this, I have the daily burden of my concern for all the churches.

29 Who is weak without my feeling that weakness?

Who is led astray, and I do not burn with anger?


  30 If I must boast, I would rather boast about the things that show how weak I am.

31 God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, who is worthy of eternal praise, knows I am not lying.

32 When I was in Damascus, the governor under King Aretas kept guards at the city gates to catch me.

33 I had to be lowered in a basket through a window in the city wall to escape from him.