Lotu means worship. Haus Lotu is church (house of worship)
We typically attend the Tok Pisin Lotu. A church service conducted in Tok Pisin which is the common language of the nation.
For the past month, we've been attending, and listening, not knowing Tok Pisin (pidgin), and after listening really hard, your brain tires as you understand only bits and pieces.
For me, as time has progressed that point of my brain getting tired has extended longer and longer as I've understood more. Still unable to speak it, I'm understanding more.
It is one thing to sing praise songs in pidgin, another to understand what it means, and then quite another to get passed the interpretation and let it sink into your heart.
Today, the Holy Spirit was moving in the church service. The point of my brain getting tired never came, and we were led into a worship that was rejoicing. The sermon was touching, and I didn't fall behind too much.
But what I noticed was that there weren't many dry eyes in the haus as the sermon was about forgiveness. After being in as many church services as I have, since I was five, you can sense when the Spirit is really active during a particular service, and apparently you don't need to fully comprehend the language to sense this.
During the song "holy holy holy" I was deeply impressed with the words, "I want to see your face." My spirit greatly desires to see the holiness of God, and I was surprised when I found my eyes welling up with tears during this song. This one song was in English. Sometimes your spirit desires something and it surprises you when you discover, God is at work inside of you.
God is so Holy... no matter how much my sinful pride convinces me that I'm a good person, God is better. I desire to do nothing to glorify myself, because even were I to believe the lie that I am good enough to garner attention and praise, God is yet better than my false perceptions of myself.
The struggle inside every believer, is the desire to uplift himself vs uplift God. No matter how humble I may feel, there is some place inside me that still believes I deserve.... something.
I find that this selfishness, this false sense of value, is the source of most of my shortcomings. Daily I seek to remind myself that my value is in who God has turned me into by virtue of Jesus.
And so today, I declare that God is Holy!
And apparently the entire church did too, as men rose from their pews and walked forward and the time ran over praying for people who desperately needed God's help to forgive those grudges they've been holding on to.
It was a very moving service, and it was astounding to me that I was able to trek with it because of my limited Pidgin abilities. God must have poured out a little extra understanding this morning on everyone.
It is an awesome thing to see God move in your own life. To be so honored that He would instruct you personally. It is an incredible thing to see Him move through a community like wind through a field of wheat.
