This is how it happened… or maybe I should go back just a
bit…
I cringe, I hate it, makes me puke whenever someone says you
should wait before you share the Gospel with someone. Inevitably, they say “it’s all about
relationship.” Or if they want to double down, they say, “St Francis said you
should preach the Gospel, use words only if necessary.” First, don’t slander
Francis by suggesting he would ever say that, beause he didn’t. And second, hardly anyone TALKED about Jesus
more than Francis!
So yesterday was one of those days where I was very distracted
by a lot of things that had to get done but were not hugely important. The urgent was crowding out the
important. On top of that, it was a hard
day to be a pastor and a dad—a lot of pain going around. About 11:30 I said to myself I better spend
some real time in the Word and in prayer, or this day will get out of control.
About 3 o’clock, same thing.
So I cut thru the hospital on the way to church. I felt like I wanted to sit at a bench
outside the hospital. I have never sat
there before or thought about it, so why today?
I opened the Bible, was reading Psalm 34. I was struck by the title, “When David
pretended to be insane before Abimelech.”
A few minutes later out comes a guy pushing an IV pole. There are many other places to sit, but he
made a bee-line for me. He asked, “are
you a pastor?”
He proceeded to ask for prayer. I asked him if he was a believer in
Jesus. No, but he needed prayer. I told him more than prayer he needed
salvation in Jesus’ name. He proceeded
to tell me a lot of stuff that you wouldn’t just confess to people. Under 5 minutes after the conversation
started, I had shared with him the wonderful love, forgiveness and sacrifice of
Jesus for him, and he believed in Jesus as his Lord and Savior. “I haven’t felt
peace like this before,” he said.
So there you go. God
gives everyone divine appointments like this.
You need to be ready because people are waiting for you to tell them the
Good News!!
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