As we walked through the village in Tanzania we came in contact with all types of people. There were the devout believers, those that had never heard, and an abundance of people who claimed to believe but had no visible fruit. We shared the gospel with those who had never heard. We encouraged those who were on the path of righteousness. And when we came to the fruitless believers we spoke truth in the face of much confusion.
One particular day we came to the home of a woman who had a baby sitting on her lap. So, we shared the gospel with her and explained in-depth the things she should be living by. We talked about the love of God. We spoke about how important the relationship with the Lord is in the life of a believer. All of our words seemed to make sense to her. As we wrapped up what we had been saying, we noticed a black string wrapped around the belly of the baby. As Mzungu’s, (white people) we were able to play dumb and ask about the string we were seeing. Before asking we knew that this was evidence of the woman taking the baby to a witch doctor in the village. She told us that the baby had been sick and had a very bad stomach ache. So she had taken the baby there to get the witch doctor to heal her sick child.
I was ticked! We had just spent an hour talking about the importance of God as the ONLY one to be worshiped. She had agreed with us about the importance of a relationship with Jesus, and yet she had sought “healingâ€� from a man who relies on witchcraft to do his job. This all came the day after I’d been at a crusade and seen at least 20 people who were possessed by demons. It totally changed my attitude about the seriousness of spiritual warfare going on in this village and others all over Africa.
I immediately began to share how dangerous it is to give such authority to Satan. I told her that if she truly knew what she was doing she would take that charm off of her baby as soon as possible. We let her know that Jesus is the only healer. He is the only one worthy of worship. He is the only one who could bring hope, joy, and restoration into her life. She listened intently and agreed.
So, we asked if we could cut the charm off the baby. We told her that we would pray for healing from the one and only God who created the Universe. She agreed. So we took a razor blade and we cut the string from around the baby’s waist. It was interesting, because pretty much immediately the baby began to smile and giggle as we stood around. We began to pray for the Lord to bring healing and to guard this baby from spiritual attacks of the enemy.
I no longer want to stand by and sugarcoat the message that God has given me. We are called to live our lives fully for the Lord. We should not depend on anyone or anything but Him. You may think going to a witch doctor sounds absurd, but when is the last time you saw someone use alcohol to numb their pain? Or over-eat because it brought comfort? Or go through boyfriends/girlfriends like they’re going out of style in order to feel wanted? These are all things that we have put in front of God, and it needs to stop. We have to wake up and realize that all we need is the Lord. I’m slowly realizing it more every day. I pray that we become believers who fully rely on the Lord and stop finding ways to satisfy ourselves momentarily.
