“We have to stop for fuel.” One short phrase that has been
repeated numerous times the past month we’ve been in Uganda. It’s not unusual
for the people here to run the car on empty until it decides it will go no
further. It is actually a part of life here. If the car runs out of fuel, you
just walk to buy some more then continue on your journey like it was supposed
to happen. Now, because the people here have little to no money for fuel
anyways, the car is constantly running on
empty. I’m by no means a mechanic
but I do know it’s never a good idea to run your car until it just stops. In
fact, it causes more problems in the long run because you aren’t ever filling
it up to the brim. All it takes is one good tank of fuel and you can reverse
the problem completely.
Picture
this: you’re walking going from hut to hut in the blazing African heat, giving
it your all telling people about the Good News. You think they have understood
what your preaching about and then they say it: “I can’t believe, if I do my
husband will leave me” “I’m a catholic” or the one I’ve heard the most “It’s
not my time but, you can pray for me.” Now, don’t get me wrong, these people
still needed to hear the gospel, they needed encouragement and they needed
prayers. But, when we are devoting ourselves to be the hands and feet of Jesus
it gets easy to become discouraged when we encounter situations like this. When
we are pouring out and pouring out and pouring out it becomes easy to slowly
start running on empty.
Let
me backtrack a bit. When we arrived in Kwapa I felt the Holy Spirit instantly
speak to me “Come to me every chance you get, this week you will be using all
you have and you need Me.” At that point I wasn’t sure what all that entailed
but I found out! The Holy Spirit new right away that He needed to fill me up
before I started to run on empty. What a world of a difference it made. I
continued to speak to the Lord throughout the day and when I woke up in the
middle of the night it was almost like He was waiting for me. I haven’t heard
the voice of the Lord that clearly in such a long time. It is amazing what can
happen when you have no one else to turn to, except God. It’s something I so
easily forget back at home. The Lord is waiting for us to turn to Him when we
can’t go anymore. They scriptures make it clear that we can’t do anything
alone, but with Christ Jesus we can do all things.
Where you go I go what you say I say God,
what you pray I pray.
