Bigger than Voodoo

Bigger than Voodoo

(Story #1)
We sat there together on the hard, rocky steps surrounded by the deepening woods. Darkness had long since fallen and the only light came from the pathway below us. Sitting next to me was a girl I had only known for a few days, and no more than 10 years old. Tears fell from her face and the sobs starting to shake her as she sat clinging to me.
“Following Jesus is just too hard. It’s just way too hard Miss Emily.”
We sat there in silence for awhile as she cried and slowly, piece by piece, her story poured out into the darkness.
“The only people that ever loved me and would even take me to church were my grandma and grandpa and they are both dead now. My mamma- she don’t care at all. She be a Jehovah’s Witness and every time she even go to pick up a Bible, bad things start to happen in my house with my stepdad. They start to yell and scream and fight. Now my stepdad- he’s mean. He hates me. He doesn’t believe in God either. He’s into voodoo.”
“Now you tell me- what has Jesus ever done for me anyway?”


(Story #2)
We sat there gathered around a little table, our chairs crammed together, Bibles opened to the book of Acts. There were four teenagers and two adults, and an hour and a half of in depth discussion about the gospel had just taken place.
They had studied the accounts of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and thousands being converted.
They had looked over the story of the gospel reaching even an Ethiopian eunuch on a desert road.
Of the gospel coming to a man involved in witchcraft.
The gospel coming to a murderer. To the doubters, the deniers, the Gentiles. The “unclean.”
They had read the stories of a God who delivered people from the domains of darkness and transferred them into the kingdom of His beloved Son.

I sat in both of these stories less than 24 hours apart.
I sat for a long time on a staircase with a little girl who sobbed out to me about voodoo, and I sat at a table with a group of teens I have grown to love very, very much and hear them talk about Jesus.
And can I just be really honest here? Both of these stories bring a lot of tears to my eyes even as I write this.
You see, this summer we’ve been trying to give a group of kids and teens this picture of a God who rescues. A God who redeems. A God who takes the witches, and the murderers, the liars and thieves, the doubters, and deniers, the unwanted children and people- and radically transforms them.
A God who comes to a man who has just participated in the murder of a follower of Jesus, a man who is rounding up men and women and throwing them into prison.
A God who meets the Saul’s on the road to Damascus.

(Story #1 continued)
See, what if…..what if God saves this little girl. What if God saves a 10 year old girl in a voodoo filled home?
What if this girl comes to know Jesus- and through her- her mamma gets saved. And her stepdad gets transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of light?
What if?

(Story #2 continued)
See, what if…..what if God takes this group of teens that spent a summer being discipled and pouring over the book of Acts-
And He gives one of them a one way ticket to an unreached people group?
What if- He would send another into the inner city to be a youth pastor?
Or what if- one of them married a really godly man and she raises her kids to love the Lord and all the time they are inviting their neighbors in to share dinner and the gospel with?
Or what if- one of them goes to college and ends up discipling different guys in his apartment, and shares the gospel with his classmates?
What if?

What if- it’s not that God can’t do any of those things; it’s that we dream, and we pray way too small, and we don’t really believe God is that big?
As I have been reading through the book of Acts, I have seen Jesus do phenomenal things in the lives of people that followed Him. And it was really, really hard for the disciples- and a lot of them ending up losing their lives for the sake of the gospel- but it was so beautiful. And they believed it worth every step of the journey. And through these broken people, the gospel began to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth.
And I believe He can take this little girl and use her in her family, and He can take this group of teens and use them too.
And I need to start praying bigger things for people.

Because, it’s not about us trying to get our way to God. This God comes to us.
And when He orchestrates encounters like the road to Damascus- the world will never be the same. Our lives will never be the same
“You see, Saul had never met Jesus.
So one day, Jesus met Saul.” (Jesus story book Bible)

And I am confident that this Jesus is way bigger than Voodoo.
May we let Jesus meet us on our Damascus roads today.