Galations 5:1
The night breathed of excitement as Nate and I wended our way through the street that held an eclectic array of sounds and people. The mood was vibrant as street performers salsa danced and street kids performed on stilts, yet pensive as we observed homeless children wandering from table to table, gathering scraps of food at an attempt to satisfy an insatiable hunger.
Three months of ministry had passed, and we had done everything from preaching in churches and prisons down to pruning vegetable plants. Yet even after seeing people come to accept Jesus and the fulfillment of making concrete water filters for communities, the longing for justice rooted so deep inside never seems to fade when you see a child starving.
Nate and I gathered some haste, as we were late for an exciting evening with the men of L Squad. My mind had been cleared in some sense after we left the busiest part of the street and my goal had narrowed. It wasn’t about ministry. It wasn’t about reaching the lost and broken or praying for the sick. It was now time to relax and enjoy the beautiful city of Granada with the rest of the guys. God is humorous. I believe He delights in disrupting our selfish expectations.
Just as we were leaving the busiest part of the street a man came running up from behind Nate and I. “You guys look like you like to party.” His English was a little broken and slurred as he stumbled upon us. In all honesty I didn’t give him much attention and tried to ignore Him. He proceeded to ask if we wanted drugs and women. I awkwardly blurted out that we were missionaries and weren’t interested. His demeanor took a dramatic shift at this statement.
The battle for this mans life had begun. What seemed to be a rather a normal evening was about to break out into an intense spiritual battle.
He said he was going to have to quit.
Nate and I came to the realization that this night was about to look radically different then what we had expected, and the once casual conversation was now an opportunity to speak life into this man.
So we started to pray and pour into him. Telling him that he no longer had to be a slave to his sin and give his life to drugs and alcohol. That there was freedom that can be found in Jesus.
He didn’t believe in himself. We went back in forth for a while about how he had tried and failed so many times. That people would pray and he would fall back into the same sin. That his wife didn’t accept him anymore and that everyone abandoned him and called him crazy whenever he tried to quit. We spent around 20 or so minutes fighting off the lie that he would never have freedom.
I felt the Lord impress on me that he needed a physical act to represent him stepping into new freedom. He had been carrying a plastic bottle of liquor around with him since we first ran into him, and I asked him if he was willing to give it up.
He took the plastic bottle and poured its contents at my feet. He looked me in the eyes. It wasn’t a superficial glance as you would to someone walking down the street. His look had ferocity about it. The man inside was ripping and gnashing to get out. Sin had reined in His life for too long. I could see the sin; it gripped tightly to his soul and wrenched at every weak moment to take back lost ground. Not tonight!
Jesus Christ was here and present, and the Kingdom of God lived within this man. I can’t explain in words the burning that started to well up in me. Its funny how Christ’s gives you vision for someone’s life and He reveals his or her true identity. You will never look at that person the same. You cant.
We started praying for him again. Bryan and Chris (two other guys on our squad) arrived and started praying as well. After the prayer the battle for his life began. He didn’t want the change. His body and his mind told him that drugs and alcohol were the answer and that no matter how much prayer or intervention he had, he was always going to be a slave to this addiction.
The truth of any battle is that if you don’t truly want to fight for yourself then you will never have the will to win. Then Nate and I felt that it was time to relentlessly pursue the deeper issue in this man. We called him out in “tough love” as you would call it; slowly he started to believe in himself. We challenged him to get accountability through other men of God, to rise up as a father and a husband and to provide for his family.
You could still tell the alcohol was causing his emotions to flare and he would go from angry to docile at a flip of a hat. So we asked him if Bryan could lead him in a prayer. He accepted and all five of us got on our knees, and we started to call down heaven on this man. You could feel the atmosphere change as you heard him recite the prayer and we all prayed that the spirit would fall on George’s life.
It’s a strange feeling when the spiritual atmosphere of a situation changes. While there was once a cloudy and heavy feeling the air shifts, it felt as if the curtain had fallen or the fog had dispersed and what was once hard to see, now has a wonderful clarity .
The spiritual battle had now turned. A feeling similar to watching a football game and you feel as though your team is defeated and suddenly a single play completely shifts and now you see that you have a chance. That victory is in reach.
When we finished praying we all stood up. I remember his eyes. For some reason the entire night he stared intensely in my eyes, but when he looked at me this time. His bloodshot pupils had faded. There was clarity in his thoughts and demeanor. He was sober.
Not only was this once drunk man sober, but he was also no longer talking as a victim but with a man of authority. He started declaring truth over his own life. It was powerful, like Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride. When it looked like the six finger man was going to kill him. He started declaring who he was louder and louder until he overpowered him and won the duel.
Not only had George become sober, not only did he declare truth over his life, he now started speaking truth into our lives and called us up into our identities as followers of Jesus. After he encouraged us for a while Nate and Bryan felt like they got the word pastor for him and that one-day he would lead men out of addiction. We all knelt down. He looked around at us and smiled. He said, “I don’t want to leave this place, the presence of God is here and I can feel Him and I don’t want to leave.”
We got to enjoy a few more sweet moments with him. We loved on him and encouraged him one more time and he made his way back down the street to go and try and stay the night with his family, and the next day try and move back in with his wife.
This blog doesn't do the evening justice. Watching a man be radically transformed by the grace and love of Christ is probably the most beautiful thing a christian can see!
Miracles happen everyday. You just have to stop and look around.
