If My People Who Are Called By My Name...

Congo is a land of contrasts. Bush dwellers (those who live in the interior of Congo, as opposed to those who live in the cities), as a rule, have no running water or electricity, but they own cell phones. They live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, but the average per capita income is $100 per year. They eek out a life in obscurity, yet are very intelligent and speak an average of five languages. Many have graduated university, but are unemployed because no jobs are available. They have been oppressed for decades, yet their faces exude hope. Witchcraft and superstition pervade their culture, but they are totally open to the gospel. Many live in stick/mud huts with few possessions, yet they are quick to praise God, who has kept them alive during the night while they "slept as dead men."

There are two seasons in Congo--the dry and the rainy. It is frequently hot with temps ranging from a rare, beautiful 68 degrees to 110 degrees in the direct sun.

Today is absolutely the most gorgeous day. The tropical sun is hidden by billowy clouds with an underlying veil of white swishes, which prevent the sun's rays from glaring through. As I walk the steep. aerobic hill again, a balmy breeze made the heart-pumping climb easier. The delightful softly moving air followed me all the way to the airstrip where I had a confrontation with the sentinel on the uncut grass on the airstrip.

I went there to "pemisa ntima ya mono" ("to quiet my heart"). Walking the three hundred foot airstrip is something I used to do almost everyday when we lived here all the time. It's a great way to live out Psalm 131..."like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me [ceased from fretting]." I can choose to allow this land, so given to witchcraft and demonism, sheathed therein by its self-imposed curse to frazzle me to the point of heart trouble, ulcers, or 24 hour-a-day frustration, or I can wean myself, let all the deterents of the evil one go, and say, "NO!' to that imposing, defeatist attitude, and , thereby, cease from fretting.

For me, that is an incredible option. By allowing myself to work up a sweat and a heart beating hard in my chest as I climb, only to feel exhilaration and relief at the top of the hill, followed by a three mile walk on the airstrip--now that is living and weaning.

The airstrip becomes my altar. Oh, how good it feels to pour out my heart like a drink offering before His majesty, Who listens to me so intently that my prayers enter His holy ears (Psalm 18:6)! And, when my ways please Him, He busies Himself with my every step (Psalm 37:23).

Habakkuk, in chapter two of his book, set himself up in the watchtower of his mind. As a sentinel sets himself up over the grounds he protects. He turned his eyes on and focused his heart in a position of expectancy, waiting on God for answers to the wanting conditions of punishment his poor sisters and brothers of Israel were experiencing in those days. The richer Jews were taking advantage of the poor Jews. God told him that the time of their deliverance would not come until after the Chaldeans (Babylonians) had invaded them and, in great swoops, would kill and destroy many as a punishment from God to bring His people to their senses once again. And I couldn't help but think of my beloved America. Could that possibly be the plan of God for our people? Will God use another nation, more wicked than we as were the Babylonians, whose insatiable hunger for riches and gain drove them to acts beyond what we would call inhumane. Could another nation be allowed to devastate us in order to stop the rank sins erupting and exploding in the United States, spreading their cancer and smell of death everywhere? God, help us. God, be merciful to us. God, forgive us!

Ah, but where there is life, there is always hope. 2 Chronicles 7:14 still holds true,"If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves, pray, seek, praise, and require of necessity My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land."

Are we willing to humble ourselves, not just ask God to forgive us, but to examine our wicked hearts (the Lord calls our hearts desperately wicked), and name our sins of greed, apathy, the barrenness of a busy life, jealousy, skewed perspectives, and on and on, and lay them on the altar, thus exposing them to the light of the Holy One? Or will God have to purge us another way? Of all the sins God hates, pride is at the top. We must bow before Him, look at who we really are, confess our sins, and turn from our wicked ways. We must take some time to wrestle with Him in prayer instead of running around like chickens with our heads cut off or spending hours in front of the TV. Our nation is at stake. Our children and grandchildren are at stake. The Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with man. Isaiah 58 is a description of the fast that the Lord is looking for and will respond to (verse 6). "Rather is this not the fast I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undue the bonds of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every enslaving yoke."

Verse 7, "Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house--when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from the needs of your own flesh and blood." Verse 8 is what we can expect after the humbling of ourselves:

"Then shall your night break forth like the morning and your healing [your restoration and the power of a new life] shall spring forth speedily: your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard." Amen and amen!