What shall we do?

Last night I could not believe what I was seeing as we watched the "drama" unfold in our parliament, before our President was able to do his state of the nation address.  However, at the same time we had suspected that something was going to do down.  My children were watching with us and what I saw in the younger two children's eyes was fear…

FEAR! 

I knew that emotion intimately as a child and especially as a youth in this nation, as my understanding of what was really going on increased.  My last few years of high school were filled with drama of a nation in transition.  This TUMULTUOUS time passed to better times in my early adult years when South Africans adopted a new flag, constitution and Nelson Mandela.  There was so much hope and expectation for a brighter future was high.

Sadly, the fast uprising of a great nation governed by a new way started showing cracks… especially in the last decade.

On Tuesday I was praying with the staff at my church and we were meditating on Acts 2, the account of the birth of the early church.  It was for the first time in my life, that I was struck by the questions raised in this scripture...  

The first question was in response to the encounter the first church had with the Holy Spirit.  The question was “What does this mean?” and then Peter preached… a sermon well worth reading again and again.  The people of the time were left cut to the heart and asked the second question “What shall we do?”

I have been meditating on those two questions all week… as I continue to relocate myself in my current reality of two significant losses last year, that followed very shortly after some really difficult complex losses a few years before that… these losses have significantly impacted my life.

I realised that any time something good or bad happens we can ask these two questions… 

Last night as I watched the drama and saw fear in my children’s eyes, I remembered the sermon preached in chapter 2 and response to the “what shall we do?” question. 

The answer is something you should read…

Part of the answer is a strong biblical theme to turn to God and be and look different to the world, that theme came out in 2 Chronicle 7:14 “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

This is the time for the people of God to do this… in greater strength.

I am happy to say that when I told my children the story of how God used the church in the last big transition of our nation and that again as in Acts 2 we are called to camp in HOPE, their fear subsided.  We as a people of God are to continue to know HIM and make HIM known in our nation.

We are here in South Africa for such a time as this…