As you walked up I could tell you still were high from drinking all Saturday night. We talked for a bit and you said how drinking just wasn’t cutting it and you wanted something that the drinks couldn’t give you but you didn’t know what. You wondered if maybe someone could fix what you felt had always been broken.
As we talked other people kept going past us into this old church building. You asked what I thought about how you could love your girlfriend better and if you could be a good dad like you wanted to be. I shared with you how all our human relationships are connected to how our relationship with God is going. You said you never heard that before but it sounded right. You nodded for me to go on and so I did. I said that God created you to have a relationship with Him. You shook your head as a tear came to your right eye. I said how because of the wrong thoughts and wrong actions that we each do, each one keeps us forever separate from God and no matter how hard we try we can’t make it right. Soft tears were in both eyes as you nodded. I said that God loved us so much that he drew you here today to hear that He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to take the consequences of all the wrong you had ever done and instead of you being forever separated from God by spiritual death, He had taken your wrong doing and wrong thinking and carried it into death. I said you deserve to be punished for every wrong thought and every wrong action but God loved you so much that He had put all that crap on His Son Jesus and then God punished Jesus instead of you. Although Jesus suffered and died for you, because He is God‘s Son He rose from the dead three days later and said that whoever believes that He died and rose from the grave, agreeing with God about their wrong thinking and wrong actions, and turning away from that stinking thinking and turning away from those wrong actions, can receive God‘s gift of eternal life and have total forgiveness. Because Jesus paid the price for you, you are cleansed of all you did wrong and if you believe in Him and what He did for you, then you can have that good relationship with God that God created you to have.
At some point you had quit looking at me and hung your head. When you looked up I saw that tears in your eyes had spilled onto your cheeks. You smiled and turned to your left and walked up the steps into the church building.
I stayed out here a while and greeted late comers as the band played.
As you walked in this door, you apparently were welcome by a tall African American friend of mine named Aaron who saw your tears and you talked with him and you prayed with him as the band was playing and people were worshipping God through singing and prayer. I heard about this part later because I was still outside.
Then apparently you walked to the front and stood with Aaron in front of everyone to tell people that you had received Jesus as your Savior because you knew you couldn’t fix stuff in your life and that only Jesus could fix it. At point someone came outside and told me to “get in here! You gotta see this!” As I entered I saw you with your head bowed, Aaron’s left hand on your right shoulder, and he was praying for you.
I’ve been thinking about this all week. Ever since people asked me to be praying for you because of a freak accident. I’ve been praying but God said no to my layers to heal you. I don’t like it when God says no. I do like it when He says yes and when He shines His light into our hearts to give us the strength to say yes to Him. I am glad you let Him shine His light in your heart to say yes to Him at that little church building on the corner of W45th & Bridge.
We will miss you here on earth but we are glad that if we also hope in Jesus then we will see you again when Jesus returns and when we I’ll all rise from the dead to physically live forever with Him and with one another.
I’ll see you then friend. I’m looking forward to it.