The Song

Recently, I was visiting a friend of mine who came to Australia as a refugee ... let’s call him “Jim”. 

I have known Jim for years. One day I asked him to tell me about how he met Jesus. Jim began to explain how he and his family had fled from their village and made their way to the refugee camp. Of how they had met some YWAM people there who had helped them, and how he had prayed one night and Jesus had come into his life. “From that time on”, Jim said, “ a song started playing in my heart and it has never gone away”.

Jim has come to Australia as a refugee, settled in, has a job, a Facebook page and goes to an Anglican Church. I see Jim’s Facebook updates go past every day, they are full of joy and sorrow, kind of like a public blog, but about a month ago, I began to be concerned about what I was seeing, so I contacted Jim and made an appointment to have coffee with him.

On the appointed day, I went to see Jim, and there were smiles and hugs. As we sat together, Jim began to share the pain of a deep burden he had on his heart. Now that he has an Australian passport, he wants to return to the refugee camp as a missionary and minister to the needs of the 50,000 others who live in that place. With song singing in his heart and tears in his eyes, Jim told me that he just could not see how he could do this; he would need to raise mission support of $100 a month.

Personally, I think Jim will need a little more than $100 a month, but my heart broke for this dear man, who is living in safety in Australia and who now wants to return to the danger zone where he can reach out to those who have even less than he does.

I prayed with Jim and will look for ways to support his missionary efforts, but I have gone away deeply affected by the experience.

Jim's song remains strong. When I became a Christian, my life was filled with a deep peace that remains there to this day, but I have met many over the years who seem to have lost their song or their peace and now seem to walk in a hard place. God wants to renew in them the song and the peace that was once placed in their heart.

There is a price we pay when we are too busy to follow Jesus on a daily basis; we need to stop and listen and as we do let the music play.

Oh God return us to the place where we can clearly hear the song that you have placed in our heart.