What if the circumstances DON’T change?

Part of a hidden belief (or sometimes not so hidden) in American Christianity is that somehow coming to Christ will help some situation get easier. Or better. Or the bad situation will at some point go away. What if the circumstances don’t change?

The novel Silence, by Shūsaku Endō, is a haunting novel based on the life of Catholic missionaries in 17th Century Japan. In one letter, the priest describes the baptism of a baby and how that baby will probably grow up:

This child also would grow up like its parents and grandparents to eke out a miserable existence face to face with the black sea in this cramped desolate land; it, too, would live like a beast, and like a beast it would die.

So.. wouldn’t YOU like to come to Jesus? But, the reflection goes on:

But Christ did not die for the good and beautiful. It is easy enough to die for the good and beautiful; the hard thing is to die for the miserable and corrupt — this is the realization that came home to me acutely at this time.