Sophie Scholl - "I Choose My Own Way To Burn”
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves — or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.” — Sophie Scholl
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To tell you the truth … I’m feeling pretty small right now.
Who is Sophie Scholl? Here’s a good brief article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-secret-student-group-stood-up-nazis-180962250/
I came across her in my WW II readings a few of years ago now. I then found a movie online to watch in relation to the White Rose movement during WW II. After that I bought a good book on the White Rose movement and read it.
She was a German. Her brother Hans was involved with her. She was born 5/9/1921 and died 2/22/1943 age 21. She went to Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She and Hans were beheaded by guillotine at the hands of the Nazis. Their movement took on the name White Rose as a symbol of innocence in the face of evil.
My attention was recently drawn to her again while listening to an episode of The Noise of Thunder with Chris Pinto. It has been awhile since I thought of the White Rose resistance movement and what it stood for.
But until that episode I didn’t make the connection as to how relevant what she said fits our country now, and also …
How what she said speaks with increasing condemnation against the state of Christianity and the Messianic Movement. I felt like I was hit upside the head with a cinder block.
As believers in Christ we have to ask ourselves this question. Is what she wrote about her own German people, with its lack of resistance to the encroaching evil, any different from our own lack of resistance now?
Like …
Against the evil that is spreading over our country, our places of worship, and perhaps our lives?
Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. But if I am, I’m taking myself to the woodshed as well. Consider just this one line and then take a good look at yourself:
“Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness.”
What an incredibly probing statement to ponder. That is what made me look at my own state of affairs.
So I’m wondering — if we can’t/won’t be like Sophie and Hans in our relatively peaceful times, what will we be like when we are forced to start choosing sides and issues?
Listen, our Presidential Election fiasco this year indicates we as a country are ripe for an internal take over. I never thought I’d hear such open praise for Socialism during a Presidential Election cycle. And if Bernie Sanders wins, we believers in Christ just might find ourselves in reeducation centers to straighten out our thinking. That’s the way of Socialism.
We forget (or choose not to remember) the heritage our Christian forefathers left us. Burning at the stake. Excruciating torture at the hands of political and religious leaders. Long prison sentences. Death of family members. Beheading.
And …
Even what Revelation says about the end time persecution against His people.
“And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” Revelation 20:4.
I feel like an alarmist when I write stuff like this. But I’m not alone in trying to stir my heart and yours. Thankfully we have someone like Christ Pinto (and others) that is sounding the alarm and putting his life and the life of his family in jeopardy for the sake of Christ.
The days of our “easy believism” is taking its toll. Its true colors are starting to show.
When salvation doesn’t cost us anything upfront (i.e., just calling on Jesus without internal sorrow, grief, and repentance over sin), then we will wimp out when we’re called upon to pay the cost for our faith later.
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” II Timothy 3:12
It’s looking more and more like we no longer can be the silent Christian/Messianic minority. We are being backed into a corner and being forced to start paying the price for our Faith that was given to us so freely in Messiah.
Let me end with the words of Yeshua. You can take it all up with Him :-)
26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
27 And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
29 Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,
30 Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.
31 Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
32 Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
34 Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be seasoned?
35 It is neither fit for the land, nor yet for the dunghill; but men cast it out. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. Luke 14
Thank God for folks like Sophie and Hans Scholl.
May we be found worthy in the cause of Christ.