Friday I had a nerve study conducted. I walked in and the doc told me he had heard me speak one time. I felt good that my doctor wouldn’t be a complete stranger and would be extra careful with me. The test consisted of him attaching some electrode clips to various places on my fingers and then he brought out a cattle prod looking device, and he began jabbing me with both prongs and shocking me.
Every time he would give me a jolt it would lift me straight up off my chair. He wryly remarked that even women don’t jump that high. (At the risk of being called a sexist for the hundredth time, that was below the belt.)
I was determined to show him that I ain’t no sissy and I prepared myself mentally and gritted my teeth, determined to be stoic and heroic and confident that I wouldn’t even flinch this go-around. But when I felt that electricity hit me, my hair stood on end, and I jumped half out of my chair. It went for a half hour with him delivering blast after blast.
Finally, mercifully, it ended. He told me he had been measuring how long the electrical current took to get to my brain and back, and said I had some damage, but it should repair itself over the next year. I asked him not to share how I had jumped with each shock with my buddy, and he said his office was just like Vegas, and that what happened there, stayed there.
Yesterday I spoke with another buddy who endured a grueling 5-hour operation. He had a 12″ incision and was racked by pain. He told me he wasn’t expecting it to be so-o-o bad. His wife got on the phone and said that she and my wife Teresa always thought of the two of us as being invincible tough guys and it seemed strange to see us hobbling around like a couple of run of the mill sissies crying like women over our respective operations. (She didn’t use those particular words, but I caught the drift.)
I was thinking about this today and tough guys in particular and it took me back to the most poignant thing I’ve ever seen in my many years of prison ministry. I was in Fresno CA at a very tough prison and most inmates were serving sentences of life without parole. These guys were bad to the bone and there was inmate on inmate violence nearly every day. It was and is a very dangerous prison.
I gave my testimony and at the end a hundred or so men were moved to make decisions for Christ and were praying with our teammates. I was standing down in front of the trailer bed from which I had just spoken when I saw the biggest, meanest looking prisoner in the joint heading towards me.
“Uh OH!”
He was huge with biceps bulging and muscles rippling from lifting weights and tattoos covering his body. His neck was so big it seemed to be part of his massive chest. He wore a red bandanna on his head and wrap-around blue tint sunglasses. He looked like the kind of guy who could (and would) snap my head off. He had two guys with him that looked almost as bad and I quickly determined him to be the yard boss.
He did not look happy with me and came within two feet and stopped. He pointed his finger at me and shouted, “YOU!” Somehow I was not afraid, (stupid I guess), and I stood my ground and innocently responded, “Me?”
He growled, “I want what you got. I want Jesus Christ in my life”.
I breathed a sigh of relief and asked, “Can I pray with you?”
He nodded and I put my hands on his massive shoulders and together we prayed the sinner’s prayer. When I finished, I looked up at him and he had removed his sunglasses and I noticed six teardrops that had been tattooed coming out of the corner of his eye, indicating that he had killed 6 people. Real tears were streaming down over the tattooed teardrops. I wondered how long (if ever) it had been since this man had cried. My guess was never.
This hardened man was standing there crying in front of a yard full of the meanest of the mean where showing any kind of weakness can get you killed. He was “the man” and it had to be unnerving to them to see him so vulnerable. I whispered to him that those guys looked up to him and I urged him to stand up for Jesus. I told him, “These guys will listen to you”. I hope that he did so.
I often tell inmates that I used to think that I was tough, but as time passes me by I have come to the realization that this old world is a whole lot tougher than anyone of this planet. I’ve seen guys on death row crying like babies as they came within days of meeting their maker.
Sunday I mentioned in church that it is amazing to me that people are so reluctant and timid to walk a few steps down the aisle in church to make public their decision to follow Jesus. Yesterday one man came forward almost as soon as the invitation began, and I applaud him.
The Bible states at the judgment that EVERY knee will bow, even those who refuse to do so in this old world. I urge you to go “all in” and stand up for Jesus! Just think what all He went through for you. Don’t wait until it is too late.
Jesus made his feelings about this subject crystal clear with the following verse:
Matt.10:32
Therefore, everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.