Praying for Persecution

The link above is to a short interview with Phil Yancey where he talks about things he has been learning in his walk with God.  It includes this quote;

Yancey: At my church, when something bad happens, people immediately ask God to fix it: get me a job, heal my aunt, whatever. I pray those same prayers, and I see nothing wrong with them. In China, though, I heard different prayers, not “God, take away this burden,” but “God, give me the strength to bear this burden.” In a country like ours, which has freedom of religion, we can easily take it for granted, either by ignoring it or by going to church as a social habit. In China, where you can be arrested and imprisoned for your faith, getting together with other Christians is a lifeline and you’ll risk anything for the privilege. No one attends church in China casually, or for a social advantage—quite the opposite. I once heard someone from a former Soviet country say that Christians there are praying for the return of oppression because under Communist days the church was pure and refined.

Isn't that interesting? So often we have allowed our western culture to become interwoven with our Biblical beliefs in a way that has created a cultural religion called Christianity. I don't want to live the western ideals, I want to live Christ. Are we more interested in maintaining a standard of living and our western freedoms than in worshiping Christ.  What would our Christianity look like under persecution?