Finally free and a swastika

I’ve been fed up with contemporary worship songs for quite a while. The vast majority of them seem worn out, fairly shallow and a little bit too happy-clappy-Jesus-I-love-you-100%-all-the-time-no-matter-what-happens. I don’t think that most of them reflect the everyday experience of most Christians. But hey....that’s a longer debate I think I’ll save for another blog. I actually wanted to share an experience I had last night where one of these worship songs made some sense to me. “I could sing of your love forever” is one of the contemporary classics that is being sung in churches all over the world (sadly it seems like American, Australian and English worship songs translated into whatever language is the order of the day no matter where I travel in the world....come on...write your own songs in your own language!! I’m positive God would prefer that!). One of the lines of the song goes “and I will open up my heart and let the Healer set me free”. Yesterday I was with a group of people where the Healer had truly set them free. My outreach team was making a little program with testimony, skit and songs for a group of Christian ex-drug addicts here in Chisinau, Moldova. We started by sharing our names and a bit of our life story so far, and it was overwhelming to hear the stories from our Moldovan friends. All of them had the usual ex-Soviet Union names (Vadim, Sergey, Sascha, Dimah, Yulia, Natasha, etc.), but all of them had unusual and heart-warming stories of how Jesus Christ had set them free from their drug abuse. The church we work with here in Chisinau runs a rehabilitation center, and the outcome is impressive and wonderful. All 15 men and women we met yesterday had completed a rehab-program and had even met Jesus during their time in the center and now they had been free from drugs and full of Jesus for anything in between one month and five years.

“Finally free” and a swastika...

A woman who was there with her young daughter caught my attention in a special way. She was in her mid-thirties but had a face that looked much older due to her many years as an alcoholic and drug abuser. She was telling about how alcohol and drugs controlled her life and her family’s life for 10 years. Now she had been a Christian for three years and her kids kept telling her how wonderful it was to have a mother who was there for them and who was finally capable of showing them love. I’m sure the woman didn’t know a word of English, but still her t-shirt spelled out the truth in capital letters: “FINALLY FREE” it read.
Another young man had only been a Christian and off drugs for a bit more than a month and he still had a little swastika tattoo on his right hand. I hope he’ll have the money to have that replaced with a real cross soon.

The Healer had set them all free and now they were fighting for their freedom. After a time of worship and us showing a skit there was a guy who spoke about freedom. He shared some of his problems with being disorganized and frustrated and then we went around the circle and the ex-drug addicts freely shared some of their problems: lack of patience, lack of finances, problems with anger, problems with controlling emotions, etc. It was incredible to feel the honesty among these people. No masks. No Jesus-loves-me-so-I-don’t-have-any-problems-and-I’m-always(!!!!!!)-super-happy-attitudes that I seem to run into in most churches I visit. Good old honesty was the way of life for these people. Accountability and honesty and good friends to help them point to Jesus as the only one who can give them true freedom in every area of their lives. I left the place last night sensing that my new friends know in their hearts that Jesus will help them with absolutely every problem they have if they surrender to him. People who have felt the Healer set them free when they were in the darkest pit, have a lot of faith that he can help them with all other problems as well. One at a time. Healing for any of us is never a once in a lifetime experience, but a process that we walk through with each other and with Jesus.