Compare...maybe it could be a good idea?

When I read about people like Elizabeth Gaunt, I can’t help but compare their life, their choices to me and my life.
Many say comparison is a bad thing.
I agree most of the time.
But when it comes to looking at others, their choices and their relationship with God...then comparison can be a nice challenge to our senses.

So who was Elizabeth Gaunt I hear you ask?
She was someone who lived during the ‘wonderful’ 1600’s in England. The word wonderful is something I am using sarcastically if you hadn’t already guessed...
This was a time in history when people were regularly punished or even killed if they were seen to even remotely challenge the authority of those times.

Elizabeth Gaunt unwittingly became the scapegoat from a failed coup attempt.
A guy called James Burton begged for her help when he was on the run after his plans failed. He begged Elizabeth to help him because he had a family.
As someone who loved God she felt that charity was how she should respond, and even gave him her savings.
In the course of time James turned himself in to take advantage of a plea bargain type arrangement that had been publicised. He handed over Elizabeth, the woman who had taken pity on him, to save his own skin.

She became known as the last ever woman burned alive in England for treason. Apparently she arranged the straw herself to help speed the burning to death process.
Beyond that little history lesson, how does that make you feel?
Beyond feeling maybe some anger that she was unjustly punished...do you feel a little challenged?

I know I do!

I want to make sure that I am that serious about my relationship with God, that I would hopefully make the right choices, not matter the consequences.
Anything else just seems lame compared to what people like Elizabeth considered ’normal’.

Something challenging to think about…