Robert Moffat
“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages--villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world.”
As much as these words move me, I have come to hear a much more tragic occurrence. On each Sunday that I begin my preparations for morning services it starts the sounds of hundreds of 'churches' where the people do not know Christ. The sounds of the drumming that use to proceed the calls to worship pagan gods now is echoing out from the church buildings. The small valley below our school building is filled with its driving pulse. Voices are raised in excitement. Wailing songs are carried on the wind as people worship the God that they do not know personally.
While I placed our banner on the wall and waited to start the service I could see the children walking around outside while the parents were inside. Each child bedecked with the nice Sunday clothes that are proper for such a social occasion.
These sounds I hear are worse than the smoke that Moffat saw, for they come from religiously hardened hearts. Where magic and superstition once reigned, now the altars to 'spiritualism' and 'arrogance' now stand. The African night of spiritual darkness has passed, but it has given way to the misty, red light of the pre-dawn; were nothing is really seen clearly. Light and darkness are so mixed it is hard to distinguish the one for the other.
I have been here now for seven years. Just now after all this time do I feel that I can see into the world hidden by this morning mist. Here people are wondering. They greet the passer by with a smiling face and kind words. But as he looks closer he sees the remains of last night’s activities in his eyes. They are filled with a hunger is not stratified, though they come from a smiling face.
In the dim morning light I can see now the things that are laying about the lives of the people, left over from this spiritual darkness. They are hidden and moved from plain sight, but to the eye that has now become accustomed to the dimness, it sees more. Here and there he sees the truth of what happens when the passions of the night come again. He starts to see how it affects the thinking and habits of those that are now greeting him in the morning.
As I sat in the tro-tro today, all these things came flooding over me: the remembrance of all those local churches on Sunday and their emptiness, the realization fresh and new of all the things that are so skillfully hidden in the dim light of Ghana’s culture. If it was not for Christ and His promises it would have been so overwhelming. The weight was crushing!
But, it made me think. HOW arrogant are we? Our American idealism, religiousness, and instant spirituality! So many of us missionaries (short and long term) come here. We enjoy the enthusiasm and do not see the emptiness behind! We rush in and have our meetings and have thousands of 'converts' in our week of crusades, and have no idea of the hidden things that we are sending the few converts back to. To quote C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, “We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful”.
It will take time and consecration to make change! It is hardest to hear the voice in the tumult. Hardest to see the lamp at dawn! What is needed is the people willing to wade through the mist and return with the people. Ones to be used of the Lord to shine His light, and reveal the hidden things of darkness. The hidden things that the new worker does not know of. So that the light may not just shine in the entry way, but unto every corner, cranny, and hiding place. To call forth a people made HOLY unto the LORD!
God give us such men and woman! For those He cries for, give us His heart so that we might pray for them!
"I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth... It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!" Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand
"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell"
C. T. Studd, missionary to China, India,and Africa
“I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages--villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in this world.”
As much as these words move me, I have come to hear a much more tragic occurrence. On each Sunday that I begin my preparations for morning services it starts the sounds of hundreds of 'churches' where the people do not know Christ. The sounds of the drumming that use to proceed the calls to worship pagan gods now is echoing out from the church buildings. The small valley below our school building is filled with its driving pulse. Voices are raised in excitement. Wailing songs are carried on the wind as people worship the God that they do not know personally.
While I placed our banner on the wall and waited to start the service I could see the children walking around outside while the parents were inside. Each child bedecked with the nice Sunday clothes that are proper for such a social occasion.
These sounds I hear are worse than the smoke that Moffat saw, for they come from religiously hardened hearts. Where magic and superstition once reigned, now the altars to 'spiritualism' and 'arrogance' now stand. The African night of spiritual darkness has passed, but it has given way to the misty, red light of the pre-dawn; were nothing is really seen clearly. Light and darkness are so mixed it is hard to distinguish the one for the other.
I have been here now for seven years. Just now after all this time do I feel that I can see into the world hidden by this morning mist. Here people are wondering. They greet the passer by with a smiling face and kind words. But as he looks closer he sees the remains of last night’s activities in his eyes. They are filled with a hunger is not stratified, though they come from a smiling face.
In the dim morning light I can see now the things that are laying about the lives of the people, left over from this spiritual darkness. They are hidden and moved from plain sight, but to the eye that has now become accustomed to the dimness, it sees more. Here and there he sees the truth of what happens when the passions of the night come again. He starts to see how it affects the thinking and habits of those that are now greeting him in the morning.
As I sat in the tro-tro today, all these things came flooding over me: the remembrance of all those local churches on Sunday and their emptiness, the realization fresh and new of all the things that are so skillfully hidden in the dim light of Ghana’s culture. If it was not for Christ and His promises it would have been so overwhelming. The weight was crushing!
But, it made me think. HOW arrogant are we? Our American idealism, religiousness, and instant spirituality! So many of us missionaries (short and long term) come here. We enjoy the enthusiasm and do not see the emptiness behind! We rush in and have our meetings and have thousands of 'converts' in our week of crusades, and have no idea of the hidden things that we are sending the few converts back to. To quote C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man, “We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful”.
It will take time and consecration to make change! It is hardest to hear the voice in the tumult. Hardest to see the lamp at dawn! What is needed is the people willing to wade through the mist and return with the people. Ones to be used of the Lord to shine His light, and reveal the hidden things of darkness. The hidden things that the new worker does not know of. So that the light may not just shine in the entry way, but unto every corner, cranny, and hiding place. To call forth a people made HOLY unto the LORD!
God give us such men and woman! For those He cries for, give us His heart so that we might pray for them!
"I believe that in each generation God has called enough men and women to evangelize all the yet unreached tribes of the earth... It is not God who does not call. It is man who will not respond!" Isobel Kuhn, missionary to China and Thailand
"Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell"
C. T. Studd, missionary to China, India,and Africa
No comments:
Post a Comment