Our trip to Namibia was full of unity and the Holy Spirit. Never have I seen a more exact answer to such praying… which teaches me that the children of God are supposed to pray this way. “You do not have, because you do not ask God,” James wrote. I am sure there are many reasons for a lack of unity in the Body of Christ, but it would be tragic if one of those reasons is that we fail to pray for it.
As is our tradition, we go to the Church at Babylon in the squatter’s camp on the first Sunday of our trip. The pastor is a young Namibian man we have known for six years named Ephraim. Ephraim is energetic and engaging, full of love and the Holy Spirit. After close to an hour of singing and dancing in worship, he invited any believer to come to the front to share a word of encouragement with the community of faith. Always two people spoke: if the speaker shared in English, someone else translated the message to Afrikaans, the language of South Africa. Likewise, if the speaker shared in Afrikaans, someone interpreted in English. The first person to share was a man who told of God protecting his son the previous week. He had sent his son on an errand that involved crossing a small stream. The young man was going to step on a log to cross the water, but just before his foot touched the ‘log’ he saw movement and drew back. The ‘log’ was a snake and the man praised God that no harm came to his son. We joined the praise and made mental notes regarding crossing streams.
Another person to share was a lady with a bright yellow dress. During the time of worship she said God put a verse on her heart that she wanted to quote to the assembly. “Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy Name.” (Psalm 103:1) When I heard the verse, I couldn’t believe it. In the kitchen of the little house where Susan and I stayed at the Youth With A Mission base, there hung a sign with a verse written in Africaans. Sunday morning before church I copied down this phrase on a little blue piece of paper: “Loof sy heilige Naam.” “What does this mean?” I asked Yan, a South African teacher who had picked us up at the airport on our arrival. “Why?” he asked, “Are you going to preach this morning? It means: ‘Praise his holy Name.’” The verse on the little sign was Psalm 103:1. So there in a small church building in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Windhoek, the Lord gave the same verse to a black African woman and a white American man. After the woman in yellow finished I took the little blue piece of paper out of my Bible and stood to echo her message. Ephraim followed my remarks with spoken praise to the Holy Spirit who knows exactly how to edify the Body.
Edification comes when we realize God is with us. We did not witness a grand miracle that morning, but we all, natives and foreigners, knew that God was present. He was calling us all to praise him and no matter what language we spoke, we knew He deserved it. What wisdom the Father has to invite members of his Body to come together regularly in worship and prayer and fellowship. As we partook of the Lord’s Supper that morning and remembered afresh the sacrifice made at the Cross, we thanked the Lord with sincere hearts for his amazing love.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! And that is what we are!” I John 3:1