Hungry

In January of 2010 I was invited to Tanzania to do some teaching for a group of African pastors that had gathered for a week of training in the southern region.  My good friend, Scott Hanson, working in Tanzania at the time, was instrumental in securing my invitation and called me to finalize the details of the week.  After some small talk of catching up, he explained to me that I would be speaking 10 times over a period of 5 days (morning and late afternoon each day).  And that each message should be 90 minutes long!  I remember responding to him half serious/half joking, "My goodness, I will have told them everything I know by day 4!"  And his response still lingers in my heart today, "They're hungry."

I decided to prepare a series of teachings out of 2 Timothy - one of the pastoral epistles.  Everything was coming together nicely until about two weeks prior to the trip.  One morning as I was reviewing the teachings my computer crashed, and foolishly, I had not backed up my work.  I lost it all.  To add insult to injury, the next day I was walking across the stage at church, prior to worship, to place the communion elements on the table.  I tripped on a monitor and fell on the broken glass of the chalice. Red liquid flew everywhere and I got a nasty slash on my wrist that needed immediate attention.  It's pretty awkward to come to church and the first thing you hear someone say is, "Pastor Rob was just taken to the ER. He slit his wrist!" I still bear a scar on my right wrist from that accident.  

As if all this was not enough, I found out the next day that a mole removed from my back had come back from the lab as being "not good."  My dermatologist wanted to immediately cut deeper in the spot to ensure that all the tissue around it was clean. This would also require stitches and changing the wound dressings daily.  I could do nothing but nervously laugh.  I was shipping off to Tanzania with an amazing trifecta that included incomplete teachings, a gash in my right wrist, and a surgical wound in the middle of my back that required daily re-dressing (which by the way I could not reach on my own).  Here I come! 

Well, God has a way of helping us to overcome obstacles.  Interestingly, we experience the overcoming not by shrinking back but by forging ahead in His strength and wisdom.  The long flight over provided lots of good time to rebuild my teachings which were still fresh on my mind.  My host, Scott, was a longtime friend who was more than willing to change my wound dressings each day.  And the pastors were impressive, energetic leaders that graciously received teachings that week from this wounded communicator.  

As the week unfolded I got to know their individual circumstances.  Many of them were pastoring in difficult places that included famine, persecution, lack of clean water, humble surroundings, and other challenges.  Some of them had deathly-ill, family members back home while they attended the conference. Suddenly my little obstacles looked laughable in comparison to theirs.  By the end of the week, I was so caught up in their passion and desire for godliness that I had virtually forgotten the circumstances leading up to my trip.  And it culminated during worship the final afternoon.

After my final teaching we decided to conclude the week with a time of worship together.  I have had the opportunity to worship with many Believers in a variety of countries over the years, but this day would leave an impression like no other.  We only sang one phrase.  And we sang it over and over again for about an hour. Though they were singing in swahili I recognized the song and sang it in english:

Open the flood gates of heaven, let it rain, let it rain (repeat for an hour)    

We were singing Isaiah 45:8.  "You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down.  Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness grow with it; I, the Lord, have created it." It was the fastest hour of singing I have ever experienced.  Though we were repeating the same line over and over again, there was such variety of expression and emphasis in the room.  Some were standing - some sitting- some kneeling - some prostrate on the ground.  At times the singing would have a crescendo effect and at other times it would slow.  And than it would build up again. And each word in the phrase seemed to get emphasized in different ways.  Men were weeping and demonstrating before my very eyes that in Him alone we "live, move and have our being." I was so caught up in the moment that I collapsed to a sitting position on the ground as the presence of God overwhelmed me.  And the following thought arrested me for the better part of the hour:  "I wish I was as hungry as them."  

Well guess what?  We can be.  I don't think I was simply experiencing African culture that day though it was very present.  Something more profound was happening.  They were representing a longing and hunger for the things of heaven - a desire that heaven would be poured out upon all humankind in a way that transcends culture, age, gender, race, and all other human barriers.  That day I was with people who were truly hungry, and their longings were exposing what I lacked.  I needed to get hungry.  I needed to desire the things of heaven in a way that well surpassed my delight in the things of this world - a reality not yet fully realized in my life.  I was reminded that day that fullness on the stuff of this world blocks us from the fullness of heaven.  

To this day I cannot hear that song without being immediately transported back to that magical hour in southern Tanzania.  It is now forever with me and I am grateful. And now you are back there with me as well.  Let it rain.

Ex nihilo,


R.J. Rhoden