Last week was good, but a very tiring week for me. My middle son visited Honey Lake with his family for spring break. My younger son also came down as is customary for him. We went turkey hunting together and my middle son was able to take a very nice trophy long-beard with an excellent shot. Our family kayaked, swam, played with our five year old twin granddaughters, hiked and rode around the plantation on carts, cooked fabulous meals, went down and petted the donkeys, played with my lab puppy, watched the purple martins jabber and fly all over creation, shopped in Thomasville, and had a great time together drinking juice and coffee each morning, laughing and reminiscing about the good times we’ve had together.
Throughout the week I got up early-early and wrote WFTD and answered hundreds of e-mails and phone calls and met with our construction crews. In spite of having company I squeezed in a long planned dinner with some friends on Tuesday night and another on Friday. We had numerous visitors to Honey Lake throughout the week. I also had two speaking engagements whereby I offered my testimony twice on Thursday, once at 6:40 a.m. at the Tallahassee Anglican Church men’s fellowship breakfast, and another at 12:30 p.m. at the Thomasville Georgia Rotary Club
By Saturday at noon both of my sons and family had migrated back north to Atlanta. We’d enjoyed a whirlwind, but fabulous visit together, and I was exceedingly happy to be able to spend time with them. But all was not bliss, I was completely exhausted and to make matters worse I felt like I was coming down with something; my throat was getting sore and I was sneezing. To further complicate matters, right after everyone left a friend called and wanted to bring some of his relatives over at 12:30 to give them a tour of Honey Lake and introduce them to me.
I dejectedly thought, “That’s just great! Here I am exhausted and scheduled to leave for yet another speaking engagement at 2 p.m. to a correctional facility for juvenile delinquents and I’m barely prepared for it and now this guy and his relatives want to come over for a visit. GR-R-R-R-R-R”
I hurriedly called our Director of Sales for HLP and even though it was Saturday he graciously volunteered to come by and give them the tour while I worked on finishing up my message. After they finished their tour he brought them up to my house and we visited together until it was time for me to leave for my talk.
After my friend and his aunt and uncle departed I hurriedly left for the prison feeling ill-prepared and stressed out. To tell the truth as I was driving I was not looking forward to speaking at all. This is unusual for me because I generally highly anticipate any opportunity to share Christ with others, especially kids, but I was just worn to a frazzle and felt like screaming.
When I got there I was informed that the air conditioning had quit working. The hot Florida sun was beaming down and it must have been 95 degrees in the sweltering hot humid room that we met in. There weren’t any ceiling fans in the room and to add to the misery index the open windows allowed little gnats to enter and they were buzzing our faces. Several ladies were going to sing a couple of songs and on the very first song the sound system quit working. I glumly whispered to the guy next to me that satan was working overtime to turn this meeting into a fiasco.
As we waited in the thick heat, we watched as they frantically worked on the system and finally they rigged it where it would work with one speaker. The women sang their songs and then I got up with sweat pouring down my face, arms, and back and I looked out at the audience. In this boot camp type facility they bring in 40 of these hardened young prisoners ranging in ages from 13 to 17 at a time and it is mandatory for them to attend. All of their heads were shaved in tight burrs and they all donned prison uniforms; they obviously were none too pleased to be there.
Their young ages didn’t fool me, I saw something in nearly every face that was all too familiar to me. I saw myself at that age with uncaring mean eyes and a face filled with unbridled hatred and bitterness.
I thought that there was a time when the only way they would have gotten me in there would have been to handcuff, shackle, and drag me in while I was kicking, cursing, and screaming and being beaten over the head with billy clubs. And yet thanks to Christ now here I stood a completely changed and totally different person at age 64.
I prayed that God would give me the words that would allow these young men to access what I now have. I whispered, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me including convincing them that no matter what any other human being on the planet may think of them, there is hope for every last one of them in Christ”.
And then I gave my testimony.
When I was finished I asked anyone who wanted Jesus Christ to be their Savior to come down to the front and take a public stand for Him. Sixteen hardened but broken young men came down front and right there in front of all their tough-guy peers unashamedly gave their hearts to Jesus Christ and accepted Him as their Lord and Savior. I stood with them with bowed head as they prayed the sinner’s prayer and I listened as they confessed their sins, asked God to forgive them, and assured Christ that they would try the best they knew how to repent or turn away from their sins and not follow the world but follow Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives…
I shook hands with each and every one of them and congratulated them and then walked around the room encouraging those who had not come down to think about where they were headed and implored them to go the route of love and peace with God instead of spending their lives and possibly eternity in chaos and loneliness with satan.
Hmmm… I’m delighted that I didn’t call in sick and spend Saturday afternoon lounging on the couch watching the Masters golf tournament on TV. Ask me if I’ve been thinking of these sixteen young men ever since and marveling at how God blessed their young lives with ETERNAL salvation. Ask me if I’m glad that God used my nasty, unsettling, and unconventional testimony to pierce through their bitter hopelessness to lead them to what they need most in life: Jesus Christ, and through Him find the hope that they have lost or more likely never had.
I have unsettling news for any of those smug “Christians” who might turn up their noses as they sneer and write these young men off as being “losers”, thugs, hoodlums, drug addicts, thieves, and pimps.
God does not look at them in that manner.
He doesn’t look at them for what they ARE, but what they CAN BE. (How about that for some divine conjugation?) He loves each and every one of them and every hair on their buzzed heads is numbered just like the rest of us.
An important point here is that we should never let anyone tell us that we cannot lead a multi-tasking, busy, terrific life devoted to God, family, career, and just plain fun. If you love the Lord with just a tiny semblance of the love that He showers upon us, which is incomprehensible, (meaning there are no words in any language that can adequately describe it), you will make time in your busy schedule to serve Him, even when you feel down, or sick, or things aren’t going right. And the God who sees all that you do will bless you not only in this life, but in the one that is to come. And He tells us that it is His great pleasure to do so.
Cool!
Very Cool!
Not getting those blessings. Hmmm… Are you doing YOUR part?
Gal. 5:13
For you have been called to live in freedom – not freedom to satisfy your sinful nature, but freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another. So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us:
• love,
• joy,
• peace,
• patience,
• kindness,
• goodness,
• faithfulness,
• gentleness,
• and self-control….