Blessed Are They Which Are Persecuted For Righteousness’ Sake
“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:10). To persecute means to pursue relentlessly. In C.S. Lewis's novel The Horse and His Boy, Bree and Shasta, the titular talking horse and his boy, are racing against time to warn the King of Archenland, to whom they had been traveling to seek refuge, of an impending invasion by a hostile force. More than anything they want to arrive in time to save the day and are running as fast as they can. Or, at least, they believe they are going as fast as they can. When they are pursued by a fierce lion they discover that they could, in fact, run quite a bit faster actually. It later turns out that the lion was none other than Aslan, who explains that if he had not relentlessly pursued them, they would not have run as fast as they actually possibly could and they would not have arrived in time to save the kingdom. Christ tells us that we are blessed to be persecuted for righteousness' sake. We may all have deep, even urgent, desires to become like Christ and live in righteousness, but we so often stop or slow down when we think that we have reached our limit. We are so much stronger than we believe ourselves to be, and we start to slow down and hold back, that is when our loving Father in Heaven permits us to be persecuted, permits a lion to pursue us relentlessly so that we will pick up the pace and run as fast as we actually, truly, possibly can. It is no fun being chased by a lion and it is no fun being persecuted, but if we aren't sometimes running flat out then we aren't going to get where we want to go in time. We have a limited number of days in this life, and if we aren't making our progress towards the kingdom of heaven fast enough, then God is going to turn up the heat. As hard as it may be to endure persecution while we are in the middle of it, all of it is for righteousness' sake; all of it is for our good; all of it is to ensure that the kingdom of heaven is ours.
