North Korea has always fascinated me. Maybe its the same way car crashes fascinate me. Who could imagine an entire nation built on the broken system of communism mixed in with heriditary leadership and a cult of personality.
Enter Shin Dong-hyuk, a former North Korean citizen born in a concentration camp. His crime? His uncles’ colaborated with South Korea during the Korean War in the 1950s. He was guilty by heriditary proxy. In the concentration camp rape, death, and torture was routine. Shin himself saw his brother and mother executed.
Consequentally having only known life in the concentration camp, the idea of love was a foreign concept to him. Today Shin goes to church, but the concepts are difficult to understand.
What is especially heartbreaking is this statement:

The concept of forgiveness is especially difficult for him to grasp. In [the concentration camp] he said, to ask for forgiveness was “to beg not to be punished.”

Which begs the question…do we…as a Christian brotherhood…beg for forgiveness to avoid hell? Do we do good works to avoid punishment or because we genuinely love God and want to do His will? I think for most people it’s a little of both.