1 Thessalonians 1:6 – Playing Refugees

Recently, I came across some Associated Press photos and saw two startling pictures of children playing. What made the pictures startling was the story behind the photos.

The Tigrayans, an ethnic group from Ethiopia, are so embattled that they are trying to flee to Sudan... if they can get past soldiers trying to keep them within Ethiopia. You have to be more than desperate to seek refuge in Sudan. Sudan is already a country torn apart by a horrific civil war where women have been routinely raped, girls forced into slavery, and boys kidnapped to fight guerilla warfare. Yet here is a picture from the Hamdeyat Transition Center, a refugee camp in Sudan, just across the border from Ethiopia. Children are climbing some makeshift poles just like kids in the US would enjoy climbing monkey bars on a playground. (March 18, 2021. AP Photo - Nariman El-Mofty)

Another photo is a bit closer to home. The caption is, "A migrant boy, center, launches a paper airplane while playing with other migrant children at a plaza near the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge point of entry into the U.S., after being caught trying to sneak into the U.S. and deported, Thursday, March 18, 2021, in Reynosa, Mexico. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez) " Regardless of your views on immigration, seeing children playing in that setting was disarming.

Jesus said,
“Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 18:3, New American Standard Bible, 1995)

In the context, Jesus goes on to say that one needs be humble like a child to enter the kingdom of heaven. But it's more than being somber. It's not being humiliated. It's humility with a joy that cannot be put into words. (1 Peter 1:8)

The believers in Thessalonica had chosen Christ, expecting to be persecuted for that choice, yet they "received the word in much tribulation with the joy of the Holy Spirit," 1 Thessalonians 1:6 (NASB95).

Elsewhere we're told, "For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." (Romans 14:17, New Living Translation, 2015). Like a child that keeps playing even in a refugee camp. (Hebrews 11:13; 13:14)

"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." Amen. (Romans 15:13, NASB95)