Currently, I’m taking my church through the Psalms of Ascent – Psalms 120-134.  One message that keeps coming through loud and clear is that Christians will experience many trials and much suffering in this life.  As a matter of fact, one of the principles I discovered in Psalm 129 is this: God’s people have always been and will always be oppressed, so we shouldn’t be surprised when we are. In the United States, we really haven’t seen a lot of Christian oppression like our brothers and sisters experience in other countries, but a recent headline on Fox News reveals that a deeper level of Christian oppression may be coming ashore.

The headline read: Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a Bible study – unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County.

Pastor Jones told Fox News that “on Good Friday, we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county.”  Jones told the county employee that it really wasn’t a religious assembly; it was just a normal Bible study with friends consisting of a meal and prayer.

A few days later, Jones received a written warning that cited “unlawful use of land,” ordering them to either “stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit” that could cost the Jones’ thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over.  Pastor Jones sees this as a religious attack – Christian oppression – and says that if San Diego County refuses to allow his small group to continue gathering without acquiring a permit, he will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

I know that many Christians who read this will be shocked, but the Scriptures make it clear that we shouldn’t be.  God’s people have always been and will always be oppressed, so we shouldn’t be surprised when it happens to us.  In America, we have been incredibly blessed to be able to practice our Christian faith in relative freedom from any kind of oppression, but we should not always expect it to be this way.  This doesn’t mean that we don’t pray against or speak out against oppression like the kind Pastor Jones in San Diego is experiencing, but we must not come to expect that just because we’re American citizens we have a right be free from this type of oppression.

Jesus said it Himself: “In this world, you will have trouble.”  And rather than tell us how to get out of the trouble we find ourselves in, He tells us in Psalm 130 how to persevere in it.  He invites us to cry out to Him for mercy, wait for Him like a night watchman waits for the morning, and place our hope securely in Him because He loves us and redeems our lives from the pit.  Not a quick fix, but it’s the only biblical way to respond to suffering and oppression.

So, as Pastor Jones waits on the Lord and places His hope in Him, let’s join our brother in crying out to the Lord for mercy on his behalf.  And when oppression visits you, whatever you do, don’t be surprised.