Last night, woof! So in Uganda, we go to a church with our contact Pastor Joseph. The church building is dirt floor, open to air, has four sides and a roof (all rusted pieces of tin with holes). We have like four speakers the size of people. Last night we had an all-night prayer at the church. Initially we did not know if it was going to be held because the church needed 150,000 shillings ($60 USD) to pay the electric bill (it had been shut off). Needless to say God provided and the power was turned on for us last night. Hold on to your hats people.
There was shouting, screaming, dancing, preaching in tongues, praying, flailing on the ground, screaming “in the Holy Spirit”, and a microphone that was making us deaf with people shouting into it. It is a lot to take. Ugandan people are passionate, very very passionate and vocal and loud. When the Psalmist said, “Shout to the Lord” they take it very serious! When someone says Praise God, you shout Amen on the top of your lungs, or just grunt (whichever). It gets wild. I have never seen anything like this in the USA. So assuming these people are not insane, or possessed, what are we left to think? Trust me it was hard for me to get there, and I’m not sure I have got there fully yet but God is making progress in me.
It was a long and hard night for me. I wanted to disappear and walk back to the house and go to bed. I was tired and my head hurt and my ears hurt. I was angry and frustrated. But by God’s hand and many conversations with people, God told me that we are blinded by trying to be right! We will tell people they are wrong and tell them why they are wrong and why that is disrespectful and use the Bible and point out and show them why they are wrong (that is my favorite one).
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
There are 5 Love languages:Words of Affirmation, Quality time, Acts of Service, Physical Touch, and Giving of Gifts. People love God by sitting silent and praying. People love God by singing! People love God by dancing. People love God by caring for children. People love God by giving to the poor. People love God by …well LOTS OF THINGS! God created the universe! The UNIVERSE! Trillions of stars and planets and wild crazy bigness of the universe! God created the teeny living tiny organisms and DNA and unimaginable small tiny stuff on planet Earth!
Therefore, it is so hard and challenging of a thought that with 8 Billion people on the planet that God’s creatures created in his image would WORSHIP him differently? I DO NOT LOVE to scream to God at the top of my lungs while dancing. BUT to some people this really gets them excited for God and they feel His presence.
There are 5 LOVE LANGUAGES (and probably even more)! You have your PREFERRED METHOD of showing God love, but GOD USES ALL 5 to Love us. We must learn to appreciate our non-preferred languages. We must learn to appreciate each other and the differences we have. Not that we have to worship God and love Him all the same because we are different people. But we MUST LOVE one another OVER & ABOVE our differences of if you think it is more glorifying to God to shout and dance or to sit in silence.
God told me to STOP being blinded by trying to right all the time. There are the essentials of Christianity that no one can debate otherwise you are not a Christian and there are the non-essentials of faith that are just a different lifestyle of living for God.
Learning one day at a time here in Kampala, Uganda.
Ty
