CN | August(s) in Uganda: Listening to God's Voice

 

"It's our intimacy with God, our ability to hear and obey God's voice, that enables us to walk in spiritual authority." + Sarah Cowan Johnson

As shared in an earlier post this month, August(s) in Uganda: "I've Seen What Hope Can Do," this time of year includes moments of remembering Uganda. And now Greg Johnson and Sarah Cowan Johnson have both given another beautiful and powerful reminder from our sisters and brothers on the other side of the world. 

I recently had lunch at the beginning of August with Greg in Providence, Rhode Island to hear more about Revive New England; and now at the end of the month I have the pleasure of reading through Sarah's wonderful book, Teach Your Children Well. In both of these ways of being able to listen to and learn from the wisdom of the Johnsons, I've had the privilege of hearing about their time in Uganda in 2008, which complements some of what I experienced during time I had there 7 years ago, particularly featured in the reflection, Uganda: Praying for Crazy Things Only God Can Do.

I pray this post not only honors Greg and Sarah's story and words, but also helps me and whoever reads this continue to press into the prayer and power God is inviting His children to experience with Him as we abide in Jesus in this time and place in New England.

How Ugandans (and the Johnsons) Continue to Teach Me to Pray & Obey Jesus

In the New Testament, the scribes and the Pharisees often wondered about where Jesus' authority came from. How was he able to heal the sick, cast out demons, and perform miracles? In John 5:19 Jesus tells them, "The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing." Why did Jesus have so much spiritual authority? Because he listened to the Father's voice and did whatever the Father told him. And, as Jesus told his disciples the night before he died, the same principle applies to us: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).

It's our intimacy with God, our ability to hear and obey God's voice, that enables us to walk in spiritual authority.

In 2008, Greg and I (Sarah) took a group of college students to Uganda on an InterVarsity Global Project. The vision of this project was for the US team to come under the leadership of a local student movement called Focus Uganda. Rather than coming in with our own agenda, we wanted to learn from our Ugandan partners. So we committed to participate in whatever project the Ugandan students chose to do. Our idea for a "mission trip" would have been to paint a few houses or, if we were feeling ambitious, to build some houses. The Ugandan students had a different idea: they wanted to spend the week in an active war zone, doing "hut-to-hut" evangelism and healing ministry in a refugee camp from nine to five and then hosting evangelistic outreaches each evening.

The American students and staff were terrified, but in our mission-trip-done-right idealism we had committed to fully submit to local leadership. In other words, there was absolutely no getting out of it. Each day we piled onto a bus, paired our students up with a Ugandan partner, and sent them out two by two like the disciples in Luke 9. And we saw some absolutely remarkable things: we saw physical healings, we saw demons manifest and come out of people, and we saw droves of people come to faith in Jesus.

And we couldn't help but ask ourselves why we'd never witnessed anything like this on our US college campuses. There were lots of ivory-tower-type theories about this, including the "spirituality" of the Ugandan culture or the desperation of life in a war zone. But then we began to notice something: 

At the end of each day, the American team went to bed, exhausted. But the Ugandan students stayed up all night, praying and seeking God. In the mornings, when we went hut to hut and demons manifested, the American team was terrified. But Ugandan students boldly case those demons out. And in the evenings when hundreds of people pressed around us, the American team was overwhelmed. But the Ugandan students took the microphone and preached the gospel – and people came to faith. 

These students had incredible spiritual authority, more than we'd ever seen before. And I believe one reason for this is that, like Jesus, they listened to the Father's voice and did whatever their Father told them to do. They sought God, they listened for this voice, and they obeyed.

+ Excerpt above from Chapter 3: The Good News, pgs. 48-49, in Teach Your Children Well. by Sarah Cowan Johnson

Next post: Childlike Wonder: Marveling w/ Buechner at Jesus' Grace

Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:

A Time To Heal (Shalom); Red Skies; Days of Song on Spot of Scorched Earth; Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; A Good Calling; Wrestling with God in Doubt; Taste Grace in World of Seculosity; I've Seen What Hope Can Do; Baptism as Jesus' Way of Life for Us

With presence, peace, and many blessings,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us