12 hour bus ride, 3 hour hike and we finally made it… we have arrived and are going to be speaking with the infamous Witch Doctor.
Just gonna get straight to the point, this blog doesn’t end happy. He doesn’t accept Jesus and denies needing a savior. Rejecting the free gift that will provide everlasting life, he declines to open it. Just needs to accept it and proclaim it, but still, he’s not interested. Witch Doctor doesn’t want anything to do with it. Thats a tough pill to swallow (especially when you don’t have filtered water).
On the way there it was like walking through the jungle. Everything that you are imagining is only about 20% as awesome as it truly was. So many beautiful views and evidence all over of Gods ultimate creation on full display. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced. Beauty that cannot be replicated or destroyed. It’s untouched by human hands who try to spread their spicy-ness over the land. Its perfectly cooked up and doesn’t need any seasoning.
We worshiped and sung songs like 10,000 Reasons Why and You Are Who You Say I Am. During this he seemed more interested in his tobacco then our amazing voices. I say “our”, but I really mean everyone but mine. As the song is going on I see him rolling his next cigarette. After a big ol’ puff puff he blows smoke into the air. The cloud of the smoke provided a cloud of confusion for me. Filling my mind with both second hand smoke and questions. Is he even listening? Does he even care?
We came so far and I have learned over the past 6 months to walk with a little bit of spiritual swagger so I came in knowing that God was going to work. I was confident that God was going to break through and soften his heart to hearing the God news that God was going to speak through us.
Another puff and I start to think that he is just trying to waste our time. Laughing one moment and then deer in the headlights look the next. What is going on here! After our translator Price translated what we were saying as group, Price clarified and really hammered home how serious this is. So important that God sent a group of people to this specific pharmacy/hospital/farm to speak to this Witch Doctor.
He continued to puff and puff until there was nearly none left. Our conversation ended. With nothing to show, all the grueling hours on the bus, hours hiking through the jungle, nothing. Just like that. We say our goodbyes and as everyone leaves and begins to walk away I ask our translator Price, “Can you ask him if I can take a photo of him?”
“Yes of course you can.” The results are astonishing. I see such happiness and carefree living. A smile that is hard to forget. He was happy that we came to visit but really missed the point of why we even came in the first place.
The walk home felt like days. I sat in the failure that overtook my mind and body. What if I had said something different, or phrased it in a different way. Maybe if I prayed harder before I got there he would have accepted.
After about thirty minutes of sitting in that lie, God reached down and pulled me outta that mess. Speaking over me that I have a responsibility in life to follow the Lord. You will fail every time Breier. If your goal is to save people on a daily basis you will fail 365 days of year. Thats not my responsibility. I have only two jobs that I am even capable of doing to full completion. That is planting and watering.
—I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth—
1 Corinthians 3:6
I have experienced great pain in my life because I take on the role of the grower. Stop that right now! We as followers of Christ are not able to save someone. We can merely love them. We went there and we did our job. We planted a seed where no other plants have been laid for hours in each direction. Amazing to think that eventually the seeds that God allowed us to lay will, through God’s power, blossom into something that will be contagious. The kind of growth and beauty that only God can create.
This was a realization that came at precisely the right time in my spiritual walk with the Lord. A lesson that is crucial to defining your role in building the kingdom and laying out what you are not responsible for.
A great friend once told me that you can merely love, but God saves.
Breier Loves, God Saves.
