I have been in Yangon, Myanmar for about a week now.
I am feeling so at home here.
My heart has begun to be wrecked for the Myanmar people.
I want to share a story about our evening in the park this past Friday.
Our host asked us to go to the park and play instruments, sing, do interpretive dance, whatever we could do to draw a crowd.
Initially we sat there, all ten of us, singing. Jen and Alexis were on the Ukulele and our host was on the guitar.
We began to sing praises to Jesus in the middle of park in a predominately Buddhist country where most people have literally never heard of Jesus.
The people would walk by and listen to us for a couple minutes but for the most part they were not particularly interested in what we were doing.
“Okay God, what now? We aren’t doing this for them but Lord we need an in! We want to share you with them. Let them see our joy. Let them ask why we are here. Why there are seven Americans and one Canadian sitting in this park in Myanmar. Let them see you in us, Papa!”
Well after about forty minutes of us worshipping in the park we are joined by some family friends of our host.
Two little girls named Grace and Hannah and their aunt XXX.
The girls are seven and nine so we realized we needed to switch it up to get them excited and involved.
There it unfolded.
We sang, JESUS LOVES ME.
We started there.
Motions and all.
We sang that song about 15 times.
The people started to draw near as we began to get in touch with our inner children.
I’VE GOT THE JOY, JOY, JOY DOWN IN MY HEART.
We literally began jumping around and acting a fool for the Lord.
We had no regards as to who was watching.
We were just worshiping and glorifying him through simple lyrics of truth.
In that moment we abandoned our care for how people would perceive us.
We died to ourselves and became fully alive as we worshiped at the feet of the Father.
It was then that we began to draw a crowd. I’m not sure if they fully understood what we were singing but they definitely saw the JOY of the Lord in our worship.
In Matthew 18:3 Jesus stays, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
That evening the Lord blessed us in our obedience. Once we stepped out in faith, not caring if we looked crazy to the outside world, not caring how people perceived us or if they were laughing at us. That’s when we saw the fruit.
That’s when we saw adults and children clapping and dancing in their worship to the King, the Holy of Holys.
When we were willing to die to ourselves and our fleshly desires and listen for what the Lord is asking of us, that’s when we will see the fruit.
In our busy and nonstop lives it’s easy to let our time of worship or quite time become routine and lack luster.
My challenge to you is to truly ask the Lord for a heart of childlike faith. Look at the children in your lives. How excited they get to see you after a long day at school, their dependence on their parents, their literal inability to do certain things without the help of their mother or father.
That should be us.
Let’s all become like little children as we seek utter dependence on the Lord.
I pray that you find the sweetest joy as you learn more about childlike faith regardless of your actual age.
We are all children of our Heavenly Father.
Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong,
They are weak but he is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me,
Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes, Jesus loves me,
The Bible tells me so
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart
Where?
Down in my heart to stay
And I’m so happy, so very happy.
I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart
And I’m so happy, so very happy.
I’ve got the love of Jesus in my heart.
