I'd like to share something I learned in our Bible class this week. It was about a German, sorry forgot his name, who is the writer of "Tortured for Christ". Our teacher let us watch a video about him where he tells his experiences in solitary confinement,he was imprisoned there for preaching the Gospel. He says he was trapped there for around 15 years with very little to eat. and morning till afternoon they were required to sit still, not even blinking is allowed, and listen to a recording that says stuff like "Christianity is stupid....Christianity is stupid". He forgot how to write and even about the outside world. But inside that place he was still able to preach the Gospel.
There was one striking incident. He said that one day he couldn't stand being alone and prayed asking for God to talk to him. God did answer him with a question that left him surprised. "What is your name?" He asked. The German thought first. He couldn't say his real name because his real name is also the name of another famous christian which he was not and he thought he would be compared to that christian, I think. He couldn't say he was a pastor because he has not pastored anyone before so that's out of the question. He couldn't even say he was a christian because he wasn't as brave as those christians who willingly accepted martyrdom. There was nothing else he could answer but this, that he has NO name and he asked Jesus if he could bear HIS name.
It just reminds me, as painful as it is, that christians of this generation, me included, often forget that we are supposed to bear Christ's name and not our own.
