“Put some 3-D into your 2-D vision!”

Now that I know there are people are reading this blog it makes more sense to keep going.
So far I have explained my original reasons, idiosyncratic though they may seem, for caring about Serbia and the people there.
The problem in 1999, though, was how to communicate this to the Serbs themselves! How could I say “There are good things awaiting you!” in the middle of a depressing dispiriting military defeat without being written off as completely crazy, -or worse still- getting exploited by extremist opinion to underpin some chauvinist position. I found no real solution to this.
In any case, if God has good things in store for the Serbs, why tell me, a Brit living in a completely different part of Europe and having no previous special interest in Serbia? The Serbs need to know it, not me!
So for the most part I simply kept quiet, tried finding out a bit on the internet, perked up when Serbia came on the news, prayed occasionally, and got on with my already busy life.
However, if I met someone who might know something about Serbia, I asked them about it. One person had been taken round Belgrade and been shown various NATO targets. “I sensed a deep resentment in the people who showed me” he said.
But the most useful comment was made more recently: “Your vision ties in with what others have said. Go to Serbia! Talk to people there; hear what they have to say; put some 3-D into your 2-D vision!”
Spurred on by this I began looking into things again, and though I still have not found a chance to visit Serbia, but at least tried visiting by proxy: reading books, following the comments made on various web-sites, and trying to get a picture of Serbian moods, concerns, fears, hopes and aspirations.
B92 s web-page in English (http://www.b92.net/eng) where there are some who even blog in English, has been a particularly useful starting-point. There are also a number of other web-pages in English, for example (www.srbija.sr.gov.yu/) and many others. My vision is not exactly 3-D yet, but thanks to internet it is less 2-D than it was.
It also introduced me to blogging, (still in its infancy 7 years ago) and solved the other problem: how I can tell Serbs the good news:
“God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for you!”

How Typical of God!

5th of April 1999
Was it real? or do I have an over-active imagination?
And yet my impressions from yesterday hang heavy upon me, and feel especially frustrating as I could not pass on the message straightaway (although I accept the wisdom of that decision).
I have had this kind of conviction come over me before. That doesn't give me a carte blanche to say what ever I feel like, though, and both the speaker and the hearer have a responsibility to check out the truth of a Word. What criteria am I to test this Word by?
Well, nothing seems unbiblical: that God loves the Serbs, I can see from the Bible; that God does not want the death of any, I know (-and it will be literal death once the bombs start falling again!) And I know God wishes to bless people everywhere.

But as I think of my Easter experience three things strike me especially as making this, "prophecy" ring true. (Let's call it that, even if it does sound pretentious.)

1. the unexpectedness. It was completely contrary to the current public opinion and definitely not something I felt already. On the contrary, given all that negative press and the continual stigmatization of the Serbs, I was more inclined to approve of the NATO reaction if anything!
2. the experience left me with a completely new sense of love, concern and identification with the Serbs and their plight. I felt like I was vibrating in harmony with heart of our Lord.
3. the positive content of the message:
   

Mankind wants punishment,
God longs to forgive;
Mankind uses force to solve things,
God prefers a change of heart.
Man stoops to bombing, war, destruction and hate,
God stoops to bless.

--How typical of God!