Easter is about the indignity of the cross being defeated by the only one who didn’t deserve to be on it so that we may be free to live forever in the Spirit. It was fitting, then, that in the shadow of Easter Sunday last week, full-throated indignity entered the U.S. Supreme Court to be challenged because people of faith have heard the call of their Lord to take up their own cross and follow.
A fan of the “Steve Deace Show,” Bryan Persak, informed me that his brother, Chris, is one of the plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor. The case involves parents from the Montgomery County, Maryland, school system fighting the porn-addicted educators who are cramming LGBT propaganda into their pupils’ hearts and minds.
You simply have no idea what God might ask you to do. But you must be ready to answer.
The court heard the case last Tuesday. Chris said that taking a stand came at a cost — threats against his kids and family — but he and his wife, Melissa, knew something needed to be done on behalf of the countless Montgomery County parents who feel helpless in the face of the evil they were being compelled not only to accept but to celebrate.
“By Tuesday, the nerves were gone and the Holy Spirit was with us,” Chris said. “There was an unbelievable peace and calmness. There are core things at stake for parents from many different backgrounds that are paramount. If we keep fighting about this, we aren’t going to have a country.”
Bryan stressed that with Muslim parents also plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the case displays true diversity — unifying around the common goal of rooting out the degrading sexualization of our children — in contrast to the woke version of diversity that demands its perversions be worshipped at every turn.
“Montgomery County found a way to unite parents whose religions have been at war for thousands of years,” he today. A ruling on the case is expected in June or July.
Bryan, who has also fought mask mandates in his own children’s school district, said he and his brother had good Christian parents who raised them to stand in the gap. Their mother, Michele, “raised heck” with politicians when he was stationed in Iraq and she discovered her son and his fellow soldiers didn’t have armor for their Humvees to protect them from IEDs.
Their father, Warren, when asked for advice about the wickedness being perpetrated by Montgomery County school officials, didn’t tell his son to play it safe. Instead, he insisted that “there are some hills worth dying on, that are worth the consequences.”
Well done, good and faithful servants! You raised actual men — a rare breed these days. Bryan admits, however, even that wasn’t enough to help him see his place in the world after coming back from war “mad at God.”
“I could have died four different times, and I don’t think I dealt with all that correctly,” Bryan told me. “Then I had my first child in 2017, and in 2020, I clearly saw the evil consuming the world with COVID and the trans stuff. I had to fight it, but I knew I couldn’t fight it by myself. It took me back to my faith. God told me that He sent me to be a soldier.”
Whether your calling is to be a soldier or something else, the big lesson from the Persaks’ story is this: “God told me” is the only certain place to start when figuring out your life mission. Yes, that’s going to mean having to get uncomfortable at times, like Bryan and Chris’ sister, Kathleen, who donated part of her liver two years ago to help an ailing family friend. You simply have no idea what God might ask you to do.
But you must be ready to answer.
In the name of Isaiah 8, Bryan said his family “has all stepped up when called” and that he hopes he is “teaching [his] children the same.” So those with ears to hear, let them hear:
You are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it. It is the Lord of armies whom you are to regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, and He shall be your dread. Then He will become a sanctuary.
Amen.
