What is God's "grand plan" in the Middle East amid the confusion and the violence?
This question is answered in filmmaker Joel Richardson's latest work, "The Global Jesus Revolution."
The movie is set mostly in the Middle East and features compelling interviews with underground Christian leaders who are risking their lives for their faith. Richardson told radio host Susan Knowles in her recent podcast that he was inspired to seek answers for God's grand plan especially after bearing witness to war and strife.
"The Arab Spring was really exploding across the Middle East and my idea was to travel to those nations really being affected by all that was unfolding, really to hear from the primary leaders in those nations, in the churches," he recalled. "And really to ask, 'What is God doing in the midst of all this?' Because this is something we often forget. We look at the news from the surface, from the perspective of the news, and we don't often discern what God is doing behind the scenes."
Richardson said believers know in their hearts that God is using everything, whether it be good or bad things, for the greater good. As difficult as it might be to remain positive amid the turmoil, the director said people must learn to trust God.
"As believers, we know when things like ISIS take place, when revolutions take place, God uses those things," he said. "It doesn't always look like what is affecting the world is always positive, but God always sees to it that His Kingdom is advanced through these things. So the idea was to talk to the leaders in the global church to see what is going on."
Richardson added that the "primary weapon" Christians have against those who fight against God is the Gospel because it has the ability to change people from the inside out. The only problem is, American Christians have been so obsessed with politics that they have lost sight of spreading God's Word to the rest of the world.
"The pattern that the Lord has given us is that we proclaim this message of the Gospel. We boldly go out and share the Gospel despite the hatred and the resistance of the world. And we see people, we even see pagans, transformed," he said. "We need to understand the Kingdom of God, the approach Jesus has given us, is inside out, it's upside down, and from the ground up, one heart at a time."
