Hidden Treasure

I'm finishing my fifth book, "African Missionary Devotional Stories Part 2." It has been a very rich and rewarding experience as I relive some incredible moments of my life as a missionary and then connect them to quotes, scriptures, and life lessons. I want to share of few of the entries here on the blog over the course of the next week to give others a feel for what is in the book.  

Day 16: Hidden Treasure

Quote of the Day: Christ wants not nibblers of the possible, but grabbers of the impossible.” — C.T. Studd

Verse of the Day: Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk and live in Your truth; direct and unite my heart [solely, reverently] to fear and honor Your name (Psalm 86:11)

It was one of those things that I felt I had to do before I left Burundi. There was a little wildlife reserve just outside of Bujumbura, the capital city. When I say little I mean little. You could easily walk across this piece of land in 20 to 25 minutes. It had once boasted quite an array of wildlife species: all different kinds of antelopes, primates, birds, hippos, crocs, as well as other plains animals such as zebra. I was there to find treasure of the animal variety. 

Rumor had it that the world's largest crocodile once lived there. From the only video footage ever captured of the legendary Gustav by a Belgian herpetologist, Patrice Faye, this monster croc is said to be between 25 and 30 feet long. Throughout the city of Bujumbura people say that he has eaten hundreds of people and even taken direct flank machine gun fire as he skirts the banks of Lake Tanganyika. 

Is it just urban legend?  Hard to say.  I once met Patrice Faye high in the mountains of Burundi in a pygmy village. I think he was as surprised to see me as I was him. We were distributing clothes and sharing the message of the cross in a pygmy village. I'm not quite sure what he was doing, but he was convinced that Gustav was a very real crocodile, very much alive, at least as of 2008.  After watching the video of this massive croc, I wanted to see him. I expressed my desire to see the giant reptile to some friends. 

They suggested I visit Gatumba Nature Reserve the last place he had been seen.  So just months before I moved out of Burundi I jumped into my vehicle and drove to the front gate. It was no more than a twenty minute drive from where I used to live. There I found the entrance fee quite reasonable because hardly anyone visited the park anymore.

Most of the animals had been wiped out during the war. People needed food and anything that moved was served on the menu. It was still standard policy that a guide accompanies the car, not so much for the African wildlife as for the human wildlife hiding with guns in the bushes. 

Having grown up in Kenya, where the animal varieties are endless, I was reluctant to have a guide. Especially a drunk one who reeked of the local brew, but rules are rules, and maybe this was the right man to help me find Gustav. 

We started the drive down the sandy trail.  Ironically enough, my guide's name was Stephen.  I found out that he was a Congolese refugee who had been living in Burundi for several years to escape the pillaging rebels in his home area. He lived in Gatumba the little town on the Congolese Burundian border.

We talked about Congo, his family, and why he had turned to the local brew. He was hurting deeply from wounds of the past, poverty of the present, and hopelessness for the future. He saw no way out. As he shared his sob story I suddenly remembered my mission for the day: Find Gustav. Remembering my real quest I shared my desire to see the legendary monster. 

He laughed. The croc hadn't been seen in years and he speculated he either had died from old age or was on a circuit around the longest lake in the world and might reappear in the future. 

Disheartened, I asked what other animals there might be to see. His prognosis wasn't too optimistic. There were egrets and hippos. I laughed to myself. In Kenya, we had egrets in our backyard and hippos in almost every river and lake in the country. Not to mention that just a few months earlier a hippo had interrupted our volleyball game right there on a beach in Bujumbura (another story for another day). 

I turned the vehicle around to exit the park.  Nearing the gate, I felt as though I had wasted a day chasing after imaginary crocodiles in the heart of Central Africa. Then it happened, very slowly, but surely. My heart became aware of a greater purpose in my visit. My steps had been orchestrated of the Lord, not to find a crocodile but a prodigal. 

I asked my new friend if he knew anything of Christ and His great love. He had heard the message years before, but it had never really made much sense. I shared about my own battles with hopelessness and feeling bound by sin until Jesus intervened.

Just moments later heaven came near and Stephen began to cry. We prayed together. Before parting company I told him about a little church we had just planted in Gatumba pastored by my dear friend from Congo Doctor Gerard Cizungu. He promised to check it out.

A couple of weeks later I called Cizungu. We talked about several different matters. 

"A strange thing happened recently missionary."

"What was that Cizungu?" I asked politely.

"A man that we have been praying for the past several months came to church this past Sunday and said that he met a muzungu (white man) who told him about Jesus."

"What do you mean you had been praying for him?" I asked rather surprised. 

"His wife comes to church here and we have been praying for him to find Christ."

My heart leapt inside of me. I had been searching for a hidden treasure: Gustav. Heaven had been searching for a different treasure: Stephen the animal guide who had a handful of faithful believers praying for him.

Question of the Day: Is there a besetting sin in your life that you haven’t been able to overcome? How has it affected your relationship with the Lord?

Musings: I had fallen into the same sin yet again. I kept promising the Lord that I wouldn’t do it.  I had fasted, I had prayed, I had wept, I had sought godly counsel, and I had memorized scripture—over and over again. Yet, I kept returning to the same place. Why couldn’t I overcome this area?

As I meditated on the issue, I finally realized that part of me, somewhere deep down inside just didn’t want to let to go. Most of me wanted to live for Jesus and keep His word, but there was still a dissident movement lurking beneath the surface. I had a divided heart.

I had no clue, though, on how to move forward. I felt like a hypocrite even though I loved the Lord and desired to serve Him. As I read Psalm 86:11 the light bulb went on. For the first time in my life I saw the connection between a whole heart and the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord is the reverential honor and respect of God’s holiness that makes us hate anything that would keep us from Him.

Only when we reverence a Holy God and fear being separated from His glorious presence more than we love our sinful secrets can we experience freedom. I saw David’s cry in a new light. He is praying for a whole heart so that he can experience the fear of the Lord.

I have become convinced that the most important element in our personal relationship with Christ after salvation and the power of the Holy Spirit is the fear of the Lord. Exodus 20:20 tells us not be afraid as the Lord places His fear on our lives. Sound contradictory? The verse continues by saying that His fear enables us not to sin. Did you know it’s possible to live free from sin? Jesus didn’t save us to leave us enslaved in bondage. He saved us for glorious freedom. He saved us to triumph over compromise. He saved us to overcome and know the sweetness of victory. 

I will never forget the day the Lord broke the power of the sin that had controlled me for so many years. He placed His fear on my life and since that day by God’s grace I haven’t gone back! He gave me a whole heart so I could fear Him. And His fear keeps my heart whole. I would invite you to do a study on the fear of the Lord.  It is one of the most wonderfully enriching Word studies in Scripture. Check out the many references in Proverbs and Psalms that list the promises connected to it.

Yes, you can be free! Yes, you can know victory. And yes, once you are free there is a whole new dimension of authority and intimacy waiting for you.