Persecution: The Shape of Mercy

Let us speak and teach on a topic many modern believers avoid, yet one we cannot in good faith ignore: persecution. And let us speak of it honestly, specifically in America, because that is the lens we know.

What does persecution look like today? And how can it produce sorrow for the persecutor rather than self-righteous anger in us?

Persecution can only be spoken of through a lens we understand intimately — our own life. Walk with me, friends, and we will talk about persecutions and the slow decay of self that can follow if the soul is not guarded and trained.

Persecutions are the whispers acted out by hidden evils and unseen powers when they find an untrained heart willing to follow them.
Two sources — they cannot mix. When they collide, the soul on the receiving end is pressed, picked on, hit, kicked, spit on, burned, mocked, or singled out. All of it aims at our worth, hoping to spark conflict and birth division.

Persecution is a fingerprint of belonging to God. It is the pointer saying, “This soul is marked. This one is Mine.”
And when pressed, the sanctified release sorrow and prayer.

In school, persecution looked like bullying, name-calling, exclusion. When we asked our peers why they hated us, the answer was simply, “Because you’re a loser.” No specificity. Hatred without motive. So we became the broken, stacking persecutions high inside ourselves with no idea what to do with them.

Persecution is isolation — forgotten, ignored, unseen. It is the hiddenness God sometimes grants His own, a hiding so complete you disappear from the minds of those around you.
We have known this too.

Perhaps the most common form of persecution is the denial of authentic community. Like Rudolph barred from the reindeer games, many of us feel the sting of exclusion. This sting lingers even in adulthood: the small ways we’re misunderstood, overlooked, forgotten. It still hurts, but it produces future growth.

Persecution is being marked as “other” for reasons never explained. We knew this inside our own family. We will not speak of it beyond saying it was hellish. The reason? When viewed, we were considered “disgusting.”
And the child looked at them and wept, saying, “But we love you.”

Love’s reaction under pressure reveals its source as does hatred.

Persecution never produces self-righteous anger. Ever. In our experience, it produces a sorrow so deep it nearly becomes self-erasure. Righteous anger only arises when governed by wisdom and Spirit. Consider Christ in the temple: He harmed no one. His zeal was bridled by compassion. Even the birds He did not scatter.

Persecution is recognized by the direction it turns the soul. Inward or outward.
Christ taught us to start inward — with the heart.
If persecution projects outward, we become the very thing we wished we had not suffered.

So we must embody meekness, peacekeeping, and the flexibility not to shatter under the weight of loneliness. We must bend the intellect and will toward the heart and ask for targeted purification and purgation.

Those born of Him — often bereft of community — use their lonely moments as fuel for seeking the Father. Persecution becomes proof of the Father’s love, countercultural testimony, a way of life others might also learn as we mimic the Perfection of Christ.

What persecutions show up in your life? Social isolation? Misunderstandings? False accusations? The quiet ways you are overlooked for reasons you don’t understand? All of these can become the thrust that pushes us past our own atmosphere into deeper communion with the Father.

It is mercy that we are allowed to be persecuted at all.
Isolation becomes the Father’s private classroom.
Insults become protection.
Separation becomes mercy.

The Father — whom we swear is good on our very lifeblood — was shielding us from those who would despoil us, who would pollute the purity within us.

Are you killed for the Name? Rejoice — great is the reward, and immediate is the rest.
Are you burned, mocked, scarred by peers? Rejoice — their cruelty revealed their hearts, and we found refuge in the Author of Creation.
Are you hated by your mother or forgotten by your father? Rejoice — your lineage in heaven knows your name intimately.

Beloved soul, do not allow hatred to blossom.
Take the blow.
Smile the smile.
Weep the weeping.
Give freely with wisdom.
Do not resist an evil person, yet do not take part in their wickedness. Pray for the strength and words required to walk through the moment to its end.

We are not sufficient — that is fine.
We agree with heaven about our insufficiency, and the Perfect Son testifies for us before the throne.
We are seen.
We are shattered for purpose.
We are shattered for a spoken reason.

Turn inward to the heart, beloved souls, and awaken to the inner world where Love sings songs like Marcus Mumford’s Awake My Soul.

As always, take what rings true, friends and family.