Best Worst Trip Journal: Ethiopia Day 2 – Church
This morning we went to church but truth be told I was taken to school. At first glance the above photo seems like it could be at any church service in the United States. This was the nicest English speaking church in the area. It was sort of a third world version of a mega church. It is strange how worship songs we sing in the U.S. make it half way around the world and while the notes and the words are the same the tone is different. This is not a “we are spoiled Americans and we have no idea what faith is…†rant but it was inspiring to see the pure joy on the faces of these people as they fervently worshipped a God, who many would say has forgotten them because of the incredibly difficult lives they lead.
Sadly, the only one looking at his watch after about an hour and a half was me; the guy who wastes more money in a week than most of these people make in a year learned something about joy and it’s real source from them.
Normally on Monday’s I do a segment on the show called Monday school where I break down the message from Church over the weekend. So since I am in Africa I will have to write about it versus doing it on the air.
The message was about our desires and I truly had never looked at life and faith in this way. So many times when we talk about desire we see them as negative or things that control us in a bad way. We think we have to somehow surpress our desires so God can be glorified. The interesting thing is God puts desires in us to fulfill his plan in our lives. Those desires can be our driving force for good.
In the Bible God tells Abraham I am going to bless you and Abraham retorts how can you I don’t have child. God knew he was going to make a great nation out of Abraham but he didn’t say anything about that till after Abraham brought it up. That is when God says I will make your descendants as many as the stars.
God was silent until abraham expressed his desire. Think about all the times in the Bible when people came up to Jesus and wanted to be healed but Jesus would first ask them what do you want. Obviously he knew, but he wanted to hear the desire of their hearts. Many times we are waiting on God but maybe God is waiting on us to come to him.
The point he closed on really struck me. The pastor said many times our strongest desires don’t coincide with our strengths but rather our weakness? Why? Because if it were based on our strength then it would make sense for people to give us credit, but when God uses your weakness it becomes less about us and more about God’s power living in us.
