"Oh you of little faith"

Two nights ago I had a dream that I was in a developing country which was experiencing a drought. I was standing in a desert plain. I could feel the painfully sharp dry rocks under my bare feet. To my right there was a young child, dead from lack of food/water; a gruesome site. Then I saw in front of me a woman who also had a child, begging for food from a man, crying out for herself and her child, but the man would not give it to her (presumably because he himself was starving for food). Most of the people in my dream looked to be from an african race, and extremely dark skinned.

I turned around and I saw a man of God, looking similar to the others, presumably from the same region. He was obviously very poor as well, on the same desert plain as the rest of the people, experiencing the same drought, the same lack. He sat sort of cross legged in the dirt under the hot sun, and all he wore was a loin cloth around his waist; no shoes, shirt or any other clothing. He had no possessions with him. He had thick black beard. And there was another man, crippled in his foot with a defect that looked like it had been from birth. His big toe was enormously oversized, and he had only two or three smaller toes, sort of connected together and withered. The oversized toe bent inwards and overlapped the smaller toes and his foot was twisted and unusable. The man of God reached out and silently touched the crippled foot, and placing the foot in his hand, he began to pull slowly and softly at the withered toes with his thumb and fingers. Before my eyes, the toes began to seperate and new toes began to grow out until the crippled man's foot was completely healed.

As I watched the man of God silently healing this crippled man, I became aware of the depth of wisdom and faith that this man possessed. Here he sits in this desert plain, poor, no earthly possessions, barely clothed, sun beating down on his bare back. Yet he knew God to a much greater depth than I. Without any doubt or hesitation, without even speaking a word, he reached out and healed the withered foot. He was confident, as if he had done it a hundred times. In this world, looking to be someone lacking so much, yet I was put to shame by the depth of spiritual insight, the faith, and power of God operating in his life. He was the kind of man that I would be afraid to talk to, because he would undoubtedly have much to say about my lack of holiness, my lack of faith in God's power, and my lack of understanding and insight into the ways of God.

Here am I, with so much education and knowledge at my disposal. Surrounded by teachers and books, surrounded by resources to help me grow spiritually, yet I can see my lack in the really essential things: holiness and faith in God's power.

Rolland Baker (missionary in Mozambique) said that when westerners come to his mission, wanting to train and teach the people about God, he often feels like telling them they need to go to a meeting of Mozambiquan Christians and instead, sit under them, and receive. When speaking to a group of North Americans about their work in Mozambique, Rolland said:

"I did not come here to ask you for money, I came to bring you the wealth of the poor."

posted by Chaddo 3/03/2003 03:25:00 PM