Blessings from Discouragement

So on Sunday evenings I lead a Bible study at University Baptist Church in Mbarara. We've been studying through Hebrews 11, looking at the examples of great faith lived out and seeing how we can apply those principles to our lives today (because most likely none of the students are going to be building arks or sacrificing lambs so that their homes will be passed over and their firstborn saved). It's been kinda discouraging in recent weeks because, as the students have been at first getting ready for exams and then actually taking them, attendance has really been dwindling. In fact today, especially with the students having gone home for holiday, I was really thinking that no one would show up, and I'd be lying if I were to say that the thought didn't cross my mind that if I didn't go no one would show up anyway and no one would know any better.

Well of course I went anyway, and waited around for 20 minutes with no one having shown up. Of course this is Africa and people showing up a minimum of 30 minutes late is par for the course but that doesn't mean that Satan didn't have an avenue for further discouragement. Then a guy came up who I didn't know. His name is Nicholas.

He asked about the Bible study and I told him that we were supposed to have it but that he was the only one to come. I started asking him about himself and found out that he's a marketing graduate from Makere University in Kampala, the best school in the country. He didn't have a job but had been living in Mbarara for three months trying to find employment and doing occasional contract work. He had actually come to try and talk Larry into giving him a contract job doing some marketing work for the church.

I asked him where he prayed from (Ugandan English for what church one goes to) and he said that he had been going to All Saints (Church of Uganda...Anglican) but had been going to UBC for two weeks because he had shifted (moved) and UBC was closer to his new home. I asked him if he was saved and he said he was "in the process of getting saved." He didn't know what that meant, but it turned out to be true.

He said that he was a Christian and that that meant he had been confirmed, baptized, and then had accepted Jesus as his savior. He didn't know what that meant either but figured it had something to do with following His teachings.

I asked him if he minded me sharing what I believed it meant to be a Christian and he said yes. I started of course with the sinfulness of man, how good works cannot erase that guilt, how there's nothing we can do that's so good it could force God to let us into heaven despite our guilt. I told him how Jesus came and lived a sinless, perfect life and died for our sins. He was quite appalled that Jesus would be killed despite never having sinned.

I told him how confirmation was not in the Bible, and how baptism and following Jesus' teachings come AFTER salvation and are not part of becoming saved. I emphasized how God made it so incredibly easy for us to go to heaven: He did all the hard work, all we have to do is accept Christ and make Him Lord, and that even following Him as Lord God takes care of by granting the Holy Spirit. Of course at the same time I didn't want to mislead him so I told him that while obtaining salvation is as easy as can be life afterwards is anything but. But really, if you think about it, how much easier could God have made salvation: "Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead" (Romans 10:9). That's it!

After all that he said he would want to get saved but that it would take some time. He was worried that his parents would consider him no longer part of the family for having left his Anglican background to become born again, which would also mean that he would be cut off financially. I walked him through Matthew 6:25-33, with emphasis on verse 33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." Then I talked to him about how believers are a family, which he liked very much. In fact he asked "Is the only way to get into this family to be saved?" I explained how it would be best to get saved himself and then talk to his family about what he had discovered so that they too could find salvation. What came to mind was a quote from orientation: "You have to believe that God wants everyone to be saved and act upon that belief" (in reference to 2 Peter 3:9). Eventually he asked exactly what he had to do to get saved and wanted to do it right then, so I prayed with him. Mukama asiimwe!

There I was dropping further and further into discouragement and God brought along a divine appointment and used me to lead one of his lost sheep back home. What greater blessing is there than that? And I can testify to the fact that it was He and not I, for the words coming out of my mouth were not my own. In fact, some of the things I was saying, after I would say them I would think, "Man, hadn't really thought about that in that exact light before but that's true and really good." What could that be but the Spirit?

Please pray for Nicholas, that he will be like the good soil, that he will hold the course no matter what the challenges, and for the situation with his family. Pray also as I meet with him for follow up, beginning this Tuesday at 3PM (6AM Central).