Today, I want to begin with a story that was sent to me by Lisa Olszewski. Lisa’s paternal grandparents are originally from North Korea. Her grandfather, whose name was Changwon Sunwoo, was a surgeon who became alarmed by many of the changes that he was witnessing under Kim Il-sung’s dictatorial regime in 1946. Kim Il-sung was the leader of the Workers Party of Korea (otherwise known as WPK).

The WPK was a communist party who closely aligned themselves with Russia. Kim Il-Sung, a veteran of the Soviet Union’s Red Army, implemented a Stalinist form of government in North Korea. Not only did Kim Il-sung instigate the Korean War in 1950, but he mirrored Stalin’s style of leadership, ruling with an iron fist and brutally oppressing his people. So Lisa’s grandfather, after assessing the situation, decided that he was going to leave his medical practice, his wealth and flee to South Korea.

They left Pyongyang on foot and journeyed approximately 150 miles toward the South Korean border, following the west side of the peninsula in March of 1946.  They traveled mostly at night while hiding and sleeping during the day for 8 days/7 nights. Lisa’s father was almost 18 months old and was carried in a backpack by Lisa’s grandfather and her grandmother was 8 months pregnant with her uncle. It was a hard journey. They didn’t have enough food and were often starving.

Just above the 38th parallel at a town called Haejoo, Lisa’s family was caught at a checkpoint by North Korean and Russian soldiers and imprisoned. This was a bad situation for Lisa’ grandfather because anyone caught trying to escape North Korea will be sent to the gulag, which is essentially a concentration camp where prisoners are worked to death.

While Lisa’s grandfather was sitting in a cell, awaiting his fate, he noticed that there was a high ranking Russian official stationed at the jail. When Lisa’s grandfather graduated from medical school he was pressed into the Japanese army during WWII and served as a medical doctor in Manchuria. When Manchuria fell to Russian command, he worked there for several months. He befriended a high ranking Russian Army battalion commander who gave Lisa’s grandfather his business card, and on the back written in Russian, he said, “Please take good care of this medical doctor. He is my friend.”

Lisa’s grandfather could speak some Russian and was able to convince the officer that he was a Russian citizen who was visiting family in Haejoo. Lisa’s grandfather had an ID badge from his time at the hospital in Manchuria and also had the Russian Commander’s business card with the hand-written endorsement in Russian on the back. Eventually the Russian guard agreed to release Lisa’s grandfather at 1 or 2 in the morning.

It was pitch black outside and they were in an unfamiliar area. Lisa’s grandfather knew that houses of worship in Korea are often at the top of mountains and his heart said that there would be a church at the top of the hill. He bowed his head and prayed, “Please God, help me.” He guided his family to the top of the hill and saw a faint light. He walked to the light and knocked on the door seeking aid.

An old priest answered and looked at Lisa’s grandfather with amazement and exclaimed, “Dr. Sunwoo!” The priest explained that he remembered that Lisa’s grandfather had saved his life with an appendectomy years before. The priest welcomed Lisa’s grandfather into the church, providing sanctuary. He found a guide who would ultimately help the entire family flee to South Korea.

Lisa’ grandfather would go on to start a successful medical practice. He was integral in transforming St. Mary’s Catholic Hospital into one of the premier hospitals in South Korea, as it is still regarded today. Eventually Lisa’s family immigrated to the United States where Lisa’s grandfather continued to practice medicine as a surgeon and then as a psychiatrist into his 80s. He helped found the first Korean Catholic Church in Columbus Ohio. He died at the age of 95 with 6 children, 14 grandchildren and 24 great grandchildren, always faithfully practicing his devotion to God, his family, and his patients.

First of all, that’s a remarkable story and second of all, his faith in God flowed from one generation to the next. Lisa had this to say, “When confronted with trials and fears, I intuitively fall back on the faith and trust in God that I inherited from my grandparents.” No doubt, it’s an amazing story. If I were in Lisa’s shoes, that story would really have a huge impact on me.

Lisa’s very existence hinged on a number of circumstances that, had they gone the other way, would have resulted in her life never coming to fruition. Had her grandfather not spoken Russian or the Russian officer didn’t believe he was Russian or if he hadn’t found the church with the priest who was a former patient who then helped smuggle his family into South Korea, Lisa’s life would have never come to fruition because Lisa’s family would have been worked to death in the gulag.

You may have noticed that this story is very similar to the story we read this morning from the book of Acts when Peter finds himself in prison. According to the story, Peter had been arrested by Herod because he felt the followers of Jesus were causing trouble. While in prison, Peter is sleeping between two guards. Then an angel appears before him, releases him from his chains and leads him out of the prison into the gates of the city. Peter thought he was having a vision in a dream, but when he came to himself, he was inside the city gates and realized the dream was reality.

Similarly, Lisa’s grandfather was guided by God and helped to escape. Peter is freed by angels, but in the case of Lisa’s grandfather, the Russian guard was his angel who got him out of prison. Then God guided him to safety in the same way the angel guided Peter to safety. Personally, I can’t even imagine being in a circumstance like that. How do you cope and deal with the stress that you could be locked inside of a North Korean prison cell for the rest of your life. If it were me, I think I would shut down. But Lisa’s grandfather allowed God’s spirit to guide him to freedom.

How do you keep your head in a situation like this? How do not allow the gravity of the circumstances to weigh you down and prevent you from moving forward? This is where I want to turn to our second life philosophy today, which comes from Felicia Bruce. Felicia says that she has always lived according to the idea that, “God will not put more on you than you can bare. No matter how hard the task set before you, you will be able to overcome the obstacle ahead. It will never be an easy job, but don’t give up. Keep hold of your faith in God as he will guide the way. He won’t make the decisions for you, only provide you with choices to make. You have to be smart enough to make the right decision. And even if you make the wrong decision, it only adds to the pathway of the correct one. No one is perfect!”

She gets this idea from 1Corinthians 10:13, which says: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” Felicia’s philosophy, which is derived from this scripture is fascinating to me because it brings up some very important questions about the nature of God and the nature of suffering in our world.

To begin unpacking all of this, we need to examine a fundamental question: does God have a predetermined planned for everyone’s life? In other words, has God already determined everything that is going to happen to you in your life before it happens, like pieces on a chessboard? Let’s examine this question through Lisa’s grandfather’s story. So when Lisa’s grandfather gets arrested and placed in jail, did God place that Russian officer in the jail specifically so that he could be freed?

If you are a believer in the idea that God preordains everything that will happen in our lives, then the obvious answer would be yes. God knew that Lisa’s grandfather would be captured and also knew how much good he would do as a surgeon in South Korea. Therefore, God moved the chess pieces in such a way so that Lisa’s grandfather could have this interaction with the Russian officer, allowing him the opportunity to escape.

Of course, this way of understanding God’s work in the world makes sense if things work out for you, like in the case of Lisa’s grandfather. But what happens if they don’t work out for you? Lisa’s grandfather wasn’t the only one trying to escape North Korea. There were lots of people trying to get out and many of them were not as fortunate as Lisa’s grandfather. Indeed, those who were captured were placed inside the Gulag, which a survivor Auschwitz has said are “as terrible, or even worse” than Nazi camps. Many people in the Gulag are either worked to death or starved to death.

This begs the question: Where was God’s plan for them? Where was their angel, their Russian officer, who was able help them to escape? If you really believe that God determines the trajectory of our lives, then you can only come to one of two conclusions: 1) God’s plan was for you to die a horrible death in the Gulag or 2) God forgot about you. Either does not exactly reflect well on a God who supposedly loves us unconditionally.

Therefore, when it comes to our lives and the suffering we endure, I am of the opinion that God does not plan for any of it. Our early lives are the product of random chance. From your parents who conceived you, to the resources you have growing up, to the country in which you are born, it’s all a roll of the dice. You can have great parents who love you unconditionally and give you everything you need, but if you happen to be born in a country like North Korea, your life may not go well.

Likewise, you can be born in the United States, but if you’re born to parents who mistreat you and have no resources to support you, your life may be just as bad as growing up in North Korea. I disagree with the idea that God chooses a life of suffering for some, while for others live a life that is relatively free of suffering. In my mind, God does not want any of us to suffer, but must allow suffering because it is the result of giving us free will to make our own choices.

I don’t think God willed or planned for a dictator to take over North Korea. When Kim Il-Sung became the supreme leader of North Korea, he made choices that influenced the lives of his people and caused immense suffering. Kim Il-Sung could have just as easily made other decisions that helped his people. He could have chosen to be a democratic state where the people had a say in who was elected. He could have opened up North Korea’s borders and been part of the global economy. Instead, he made choices that isolated North Korea to the point where the population was often on the cusp of starvation.

God didn’t make those decisions for Kim Il-Sung. God didn’t stop those decisions by Kim Il Sung, but God was certainly in the midst of the people who suffered from those decisions by Kim Il Sung, which brings us back to the scripture Felicia cited earlier: God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.

So first and foremost, I think it’s really important to emphasize that God is not the one testing us. We are all tested by life. Suffering does not discriminate. We all endure suffering, it’s simply a matter of the degree to which we suffer. And I think it’s also important to point out that you cannot read the first part of this scripture without remembering the second part. If you stop with the idea that God will not let you be tested beyond your strength that statement, by itself, is a false statement. Think of the people in those North Korean Gulags or the Nazi concentration camps who were tortured to death. They were tested beyond their strength.

However, if we combine the first part with the second part, where it says that God will also provide a way out so you can endure the suffering, then I find that statement does often hold true and I want to return to Lisa’s grandfather’s story. So Lisa’s grandfather is a man of faith. He clearly prays and believes very strongly in God. And when he’s in that jail cell, I’m sure his faith was guiding his interactions with that Russian officer. His faith allowed him to see the possibility of how that officer could help him out.

I’ve experienced this in my own life. When you find yourself in a situation where you are suffering, I think a big aspect of being able to overcome those types of situations is that your faith helps you to become aware of the angels that are all around you. If you’re really connected to God’s spirit, then you can more easily the see the people in your midst who can help you to the other side of that suffering. For me, I believe it is God working through other people in my life that allows me not be broken by suffering.

Those who go it alone are often the ones who end up getting crushed by their circumstances. If they don’t have a strong support system or if they reject the support system that they do have, then that’s when we get tested beyond our strength. From my perspective, the way we are not crushed by our circumstances is by embracing the people who provide us with love, kindness and support. Indeed, there’s an important reason why having faith is connected with being able to see God working in other people.

When you have faith in God, you understand fundamentally that you cannot do everything on your own. Faith opens you to the idea that you need to be vulnerable and accept help from others when you cannot help yourself. Hence, the philosophy of faith and perseverance is really based on the idea that faith allows one to persevere because it gives you the ability to see and take advantage of all the help God has placed in your life. 

So my hope and prayer for you this morning is that you might understand that faith is what allows us to persevere through really difficult circumstances. Whenever you are suffering, whenever you are feeling like you are being tested beyond your strength, look around and take note of all the people who are ready and willing to be there for you. Some might be obvious, like family, friends and members of this community. Others might be less obvious, like a Russian officer in a North Korean jail cell. But no matter where you are, I truly believe God is supporting you through the people in your life. You simply have to have the eyes to see how they are God’s hands and feet in the world. Amen.