A few days ago, one of the most stark examples possible of what I mentioned yesterday about the ministry to others forged in the fire came to be. BBC journalist Alan Johnston, himself a kidnap victim for four months in Gaza, interviewed Ingrid Betancourt.
[video http://www.diecast-dude.com/gac/betancourt_bbc.flv]
The ministry:
But we differed in one major way.
I am grateful to the many people who I know were kind enough to pray for me when I was lost in Gaza.
But actually, I was not praying myself.
I would hear on the radio of war and bloodshed in places like DR Congo, and I felt that if God was not intervening to spare the innocent there, I could not see quite why He might intervene for me.
I struggle to believe that God closely manages our individual lives.
But Ingrid’s faith seems to have been a huge factor in her survival.
She said that I had simply not asked the right questions about God, and that it was our connection with Him that made us human.
He was not creating the ills of the world, she said. Mankind had been given free will, and it was to blame.
She said that not to believe, and to be cynical, was to take the easy path in life.
God bless Ingrid Betancourt as she has blessed us.
