During our time at the Global Gathering in Thailand, each country gave ministry updates on what God is doing. In one of the closed access countries where Sports Friends works, a brother shared a story that stuck with us.
In this man’s country, many people still practice human sacrifice. Let that hit you. People are sacrificing other people to appease their gods. Precious image-of-God bearers are being sacrificed to false gods today. This is an awful reality in the world we live in. The enemy of our souls has so warped people’s minds that they actually are taking their own children and throwing them into a river as a sacrifice to their false gods. My dear friend and co-laborer for the Gospel works in a country where this happens every day.
One day, my friend and his wife were prayer walking and telling people about the life-giving Good News of Jesus Christ when they came upon a woman who was clearly distraught. My friends saw her and sat down next to her by the side of a massive river. They listened to the woman as she poured out her heart. She was grieving because she had just thrown her live baby into the river as a sacrifice to her gods. She was confused and in agony wondering why her gods would have her do a thing that felt so wrong to all her motherly instincts.
Then, with the sacrifice of death heavy on their hearts and streaming in the form of tears down their faces, my friends clearly proclaimed the sacrifice of Jesus Christ with this grieving mother.
After my friend shared that part of the story with us, I expected to hear that the woman broke down in tears and surrendered her life to the Lord. However, her response was not sorrow, but rage. This precious mother in her grief began shouting at my friends and was clearly very angry with them. With tears of resentment, the woman shouted at my friends, “Why did you not come sooner?!”
In this life we focus on many different things. But the reality is that there are people who are desperately lost and urgently need the Gospel shared with them. If you are a child of God, please take a moment and ask God who He might want you to tell the greatest news in the world to. Don’t say to yourself, “I’ll do it later.” Tomorrow is not promised. Don’t take the Gospel for granted. It’s been entrusted to you for a reason: so that you might make Jesus known. My family has been sent to Malawi to do this and God has you in the place where you are for a reason too.
Please pray for my friend who is living and working in this context. Pray that he and his wife will share Christ faithfully in light of the urgency of eternity.
Please pray the same for us as we arrive back in Malawi this week. Pray that we’d continue to be sensitive to the Spirit of God in being His witnesses every day and making the most of each opportunity to make Christ’s name known and praised. There is great darkness in this world but Jesus shines brighter. He has overcome the world!