A beautiful thing about Haitian culture has to do with the word "demen" meaning "tomorrow". You will seldom hear this word by itself. Most of the time it will be accompanied with a wonderful phrase: if God wants. The absolute reliance on the will of God in using this phrase amazes me. I have been considering this phrase lately-especially since the sudden passing of Sam-Mya. Life is fragile. So very fragile. We don't know when our time here on earth will come to a close or when a family member or friend will pass away. When we make plans for tomorrow, it should be for tomorrow if God wants.
Yesterday, Al and I attended Sam-Mya's funeral. The church seats 3,000 people. There was no room to sit. People from all over south Haiti and beyond these boarders came to grieve with Pastor Samson and his family. I was shocked to read in the program that Pastor Samson would be giving the meditation. I prayed for God to give him strength as he stood up to begin surrounded by some leaders of the church.
He stood and spoke with the power of God. His message was clear. We can either resist the will of God or accept it. He was choosing to accept it. His daughter was in the arms of her Creator and he was going to accept that this was God's will. He was choosing to believe that God is God and the whole time we were praying for Sam-Mya, we were praying for His will to be done. And it was.
He preached that God is still God and preached the Gospel clearly. He offered to pray for people who wanted and needed to know Jesus. And he ended with a song that is a song of declaration: I Believe. He sang with such conviction and the congregation joined in. Tears came to my eyes. He did believe and he is clinging to his God whose will was done.
This morning, at church, Pastor Samson showed up and surprised the congregation at the end of the early service. He got up and asked again if there was someone who needed to know Jesus today. He said that you can live without Jesus, but do not die without Him. He sang the song again. It says, "Lord, I believe You are God...I believe you died. I believe You rose again. Yes, I believe You are the Master of life....Yes, I believe You have all the power."
So, two things to think about today--two things to encourage you:
1. Tomorrow if God wills.
2. Do you believe?
James 4:13-15
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit"-yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."
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