Acknowledgment
6 min read
3 and Ahab had summoned Obadiah, his palace administrator. (Obadiah was a devout believer in the LORD. 4 While Jezebel was killing off the LORD’s prophets, Obadiah had taken a hundred prophets and hidden them in two caves, fifty in each, and had supplied them with food and water.)
— 1 Kings 18:3-4
At great risk to his own life and livelihood, Obadiah continued to be devoted to God and saved the lives of some of His prophets—as many as he could save, probably.
When Christians today are confronted with the choice of serving worldly masters or serving God, what choice will we make?
When I was still working in software development, there were things that I have said and done that I am not proud of—many things that I had to repent for. But I can be proud of those moments when I acknowledged God before God haters.
I used to work for a company that had an open online bulletin board. People could pretty much post anything they wanted on this board within reason. There was no real oversight on the content, as far as I could tell.
The good thing about that was that Christians could post content to bear witness to Jesus Christ—at their own risk. There was a group of “militant” atheists who took it upon themselves (they were not authorized to do so) to “moderate” the content of the board to make sure that it remained secular—that is, atheist And their strategy for keeping the board secular was to pounce on and ridicule and bully any Christian posting on the board.
One time, one sister posted something, and sure enough, the atheists started ridiculing her. Other Christians started chiming in, sparking a massive onslaught of ridicule on the part of the atheists. I got kind of angry about this and added my own two cents related to the freedom of speech, and, of course, I received some ridiculing from them myself.
Anyway, this particular post just blew up and went really deep (people responding to people, and so on). I followed this one particular thread that involved one of the more influential bullies. He and this one other atheists were moaning and groaning about us ignorant Christians. And then one of them wrote something like, “I just want to get all this god talk off of this board!”—as if that bulletin board was so pure and special and being tainted by all the ignorant god-talk from the Christians, and as if some supreme power had anointed him to be the guardian of the board!
And I couldn’t help myself. I replied, “God.”
I actually met the influential militant atheists face to face. He was a trainer, and I ended up taking one of his classes. When he found out who I was … oh, man … he started chest thumping and jousting (indirectly) saying how he was a former special forces dude who could knew 100 ways to kill a person (he actually said something along those lines in a class). And apparently he felt that he had the immunity to be an idiot like that because he was a cancer survivor.
I’m sure that there are atheists in this world who are gentle and kind. But the “militant” atheists I have met may be some of the most ignorant bullies I’ve ever met. It’s too easy to poke holes in their ranting. And, Lord forgive me, I enjoy doing so. The smartest atheists actually understand that the basis of atheism is faith, just as much as Christianity is.
My enjoyment of goading atheist bullies is not something to be proud of. But I know that Jesus will acknowledge me before our Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32-33).
Father, You are good. But this world is not. Help me to bear witness to Christ in a manner that is honoring to You. Give me courage always to acknowledge You so that Christ will acknowledge me before You. In Jesus’s name. Amen.