Preaching & Fixing

The past two days have been fantastic!

Thursday

I mentioned in my last post I think, that I was to preach at a school nearby, DK. I also mentioned that it was a long story. Well, it’s a long page! I preached on Thursday, a 3 week old sermon.

I got home Thursday evening at about 20.30hrs. I met my dad at the door, found my mom in the sitting room. She looked at me with eyes which asked, so… how did it go? I read her mind and said, “Mom, I am lots of things but I am no preacher!”

About a month and a half ago I asked my buddy if he could let me come preach at his school where he is a leader of the youth meeting there every Thursday evening. He was much obliged. The guys at the school already know me because I sing quite a lot over there. They appreciate my singing there but obviously didn’t think of me as a preacher. Anyways, my buddy told me I was on about 2 or so weeks later to preach an evangelistic message on the topic, “The joys of becoming a Christian.” I had a problem with that, read about it on the post titled, “Where you really repentant”. A week before I was to preach, my buddy tells me, “Look man, there’s been a mix up in the schedule, you are to preach after this coming Thursday instead of the Thursday itself, sorry.” I’m like, “Cool bro, I’ll be ready.” Well, I thought, “It’s just a mix up, everything is fine.” The next week comes through and it’s a holiday on the day I am to preach. In the morning my buddy tells me that, the numbers might be low because people might travel home for the long weekend but if not I’ll preach, if they travel he’ll push me to the next week.

DK is a boarding school. It’s a secondary school. It also has “A Level” students who are not necessarily regarded as ordinary students. The “A Level” students have an “A Level” Fellowship. It meets every Thursday evening at 18.30hrs. Only “A Level” students attend so when I say I sing at DK, what I mean is that I sing at DK to the “A Level” students who attend the meeting. The attendance tends to be very good. It’s always surprised me how that so many non-Christians attend the “A Level” Fellowship. It has since dawned on me that they attend because the only other thing they are allowed to do at that hour is study!

So, that evening as I am walking out the door to go to the meeting where I am to preach, the power goes at home. I arrive at the school only to discover that the power is gone their too! It doesn’t come back until after about an hour and a half I think it was. So I don’t get to preach. I begin to wonder what issues God seems to be having with my preaching at DK. I must mention that two of my friends where very supportive of me. When I told them I’d be preaching at DK, they totally made sure they’d be there to support me. I am quite discouraged but my buddy tells me, I’ll preach the next week.

The next Thursday, the day before yesterday, comes through and guess what, Zambia is voting, it’s a holiday! What is up with God?! My buddy tells me numbers might be low again as people will go for a long weekend. I’m not impressed. My buddy tells me to pitch just incase the numbers are good. I really doubt that they will be good so I even go play soccer that afternoon. While playing soccer my buddy sends me a message on my cell. “The numbers will be poor”. This time pushing the date will be very difficult because the rest of the Thursdays are taken. I return to my soccer game actually happy because I wouldn’t have to cut my soccer game short to go and preach. Well, after the game, I call my buddy on his cell; I tell him I want to preach to whoever’s there. He encourages me to do so.

This time my faithful friends bail out on me. I was playing soccer with them and they say they are tired and can’t support me that evening. I am pretty discouraged but I just say, “No problem fellows, I’ll let you know how it goes.”

I get to the meeting; I find the room empty, under or maybe just over 10 people. Attendance is poor. I get up there and preach.

I was really motivated to preach that night. Not that the sermon was powerful or anything, but I wasn’t at all discouraged by what was going on around me, the postponing, my friends, attendance etc, none of it really got to me. Infact it encouraged me. The postponing, attendance and my friends bailing on me was divine, I knew it was. Everything seemingly going wrong was no mistake, God knew what was happening and I thought If I preach like everything had worked out like, attendance was good, like my friends where there, like it was the original date set, in other words, if I conquered the trials, something big was going to happen, maybe someone would get saved. I was so convinced of this that I was not at all discouraged by what was going on. I almost saw it as funny. Like God was pulling my leg, or trying me.

Anyway, I preached on true repentance. We are all sinners, I worked hard to show this even going to the extent of showing examples from Romans 3 and Psalms 52:1-5 or is it Psalms 53, I forget. I then went on to show that God is Holy, A fella even started dosing! Ha, ha, it was so funny how those things were happening to pull me down! But as I said, I was so convinced something big was going to happen, maybe not immediately but definitely. I then said that God loves us despite and inspite of our sin. He puts up with us. I ended by addressing those who are saved. I urged them to preach true repentance, see my post with the same heading, last paragraph. I addressed those seeking God. I told them ask God to make you realise you are a sinner, only then will you truly be sorry. I ended by addressing those who, “[were] not even interested in what I have been saying tonight”. Like that fella who sat at the back who even had the courtesy to stick one earpiece into his ear while I was talking to listen to the radio on his phone or whatever. I said, “If you are here and you are saying, I don’t need God, am happy the way I am, happy with my wrong doing, I don’t give a damn about God. I only have this to say to you. Don’t go to God because you love him; go to him because he loves. He wants you so badly, he loves you. He loves you so much that he will still have open arms when you have been brought down to your knees, He will always love you.” Amen.

It was great to preach the good news and you know what, I want to do it again!




Friday

I’ve written so much, am so tired. But Dad is really smart. We have this display in the sitting room that is connected to a timer. Everyday, the display lights light up its contents from 19.30hrs to 21.30hrs. Dad came up with the brilliant idea of removing the timer and connecting the display to the switch for the sitting room lights so that whenever you turn the sitting room lights on, the display lights go on as well.

Dad then took the timer to the switch for the geyser and timed it to turn on certain times of the day, rather than be on at all times of the day, brilliant! I actually did all the work while dad issued commands and blamed me for the screws which went missing! It was fun, chao,

Mwindula.