A Personal Infinite God

I visited a friend who told me about how her older brother drowned in a river.  His friends tried and tried to pull him out of the water but nothing seemed to work.  I asked her if he knew how to swim and she told me he could swim well but a devil was inside the water that killed him.   Since then, anytime she needs to pass that river, she will never walk because she is afraid of the devil.  This devil is often called “mami wata”  (Mama water).  Some people are afraid to swim simply because of mami wata.  

Just recently, a security guard from the school was rumored to have been shot with a witch gun.  They immediately took him to the village to get healed “traditionally.”  Around that time, a dead frog was found on the window of the secretary’s office.  Several people took pictures, claiming it was witchcraft.  Most people here know Koinadugu District as the center of witchcraft in Sierra Leone.  

I have been reading a book called “A Praying Life” and in the book, the author suggests that “an infinite-personal God is such an astounding idea that we struggle to grasp it.  Our modern world is okay with an infinite God, as long as he doesn’t get too personal, as long as he stays out of science notes.  Non-Western cultures have no trouble thinking that God is personal but they doubt he is infinite.”   

Devils killing people inside water, getting shot with witch guns, going to witchdoctors to heal your sicknesses, putting a curse on someone through witchcraft, human beings levitating in the air, men using magic to lure women to them, are very much real here in Sierra Leone but they are ideas that we as westerners have a hard time believing.  Even myself, I am still skeptical at times.  Maybe the frog died from natural causes, not because of witchcraft.  Maybe my friend's brother died in the river because he could not swim or the current was too strong.

A traditional healer who lived a few houses down from me last year showed me his I.D card stating that Koinadugu District had licensed him as a traditional healer.  He then invited me into his room where he practices.  It was in this moment that I began to realize how real the devil is and how many people here believe that evil spirits are just as personal as the one true God.  

I have had conversations with many Christians here stating their fear of witchcraft on their own lives.  I always ask “As a Christian, don’t you have the most powerful spirit inside of you?”  The devil can try but he will never be able to drive out the Holy Spirit from you.    

As Westerners, we do not like to get too personal with God.  We would rather keep God at a distance.  But here, the spirit world is highly personal.  Because God exists at a highly personal level, so do other evil spirits.  Therefore, God is not always seen as infinite,

How do we as Christians find a balance?  God needs to be personal to us, more than we are used to, but we also need to believe that he is infinite and nothing else has power over God.   Maybe we will never fully have the answer to this question, but we can strive towards a personal infinite God.  The challenge for me is to learn from Sierra Leoneans here how to create a more personal relationship with God but also for me to encourage them in the idea that God is infinite.  

I remember last year telling my students many stories about how the Holy Spirit is more powerful than other evil spirits.  I felt the Holy Spirit in the room during those times.  My students understood the power of having the Holy Spirit inside of you, in believing in the one true God.   As followers of Christ from around the world, how to do we strive towards a personal infinite God?