We headed to a local bar for the NC State NCAA basketball game the other night just to relax, be with some friends and watch the wolf pack kick some butt…..but that’s not what happened, we had an….incident…
My brother Ryan and I were sitting watching the game and we started to talk to these guys 2 seats next to us. There were 3 guys, all older, and had clearly had a few drinks in them to begin with. One guy ended up ordering a whole bottle of wine…for himself!! So we talked to them about little stuff, where we are from stuff like that.
Then he asked why we were here?
Ryan and I said, we are volunteering.
He asked, What do you do?
We said, We do a lot of things, but lately we are teaching English.
He was very drunk and not in a good mood and didn’t understand why we would travel around the world, not make any money, solely to help people.
He then asked who our boss was…..
I didn’t know any other answer but to say, Jesus!!!
….He didn’t like that very much….
So that made him explode!! If you haven’t guessed it, he is NOT a believer and does not support. But keep reading because it gets good!!
So Ryan and I keep our cool and answered his questions calmly and to represent the Lord the best we could. He was extremely rude, cursing, loud, saying horrible things, but the Holy Spirit kept us cool and collected. At one point he went up to Ryan’s face and said, “Hit me!! I want you to hit me right now!!”
I looked at Ryan and said, “Ryan, this is straight from the Devil, he’s trying to temp you, be strong in the Lord and resist snapping dude!!!” It got crazy for a while. He then went to the bathroom. While he was there, his friend that he was with apologized for his friends behavior. All the other people in the bar saw what was going on too and came up to us and told us that they had our backs and that we are being really good about the whole situation. While he was gone, Ryan and I prayed for him. We prayed for the Holy Spirit to overtake him and bring peace to him. He then came down from the bathroom and came right to us…..to apologize…..
He said, “I don’t want you guys to look at me as a drunk a**h***.” And all this other stuff. But Ryan and I kept telling him that he didn’t have to apologize and that we love him no matter what he did or said. That we are here to love on people no matter what their situation.
The game ended, NC State won!!! And we were getting ready to leave. We went up to these men to say goodbye and they got up and gave us huge hugs and apologized once again. His friend whispered in both Ryan and myself ear, “never stop believing, your doing an amazing thing.” Which was amazing!!
It was a crazy couple of hours, but starting out arguing about religion and what we are doing here, ended in hugs and keep in touches!!!
God, I love you!!!
Things I learned that night:
You ask for patience, Holy Spirit gives it immediately
You ask for the Holy Spirit to take over a person and make them think about their actions, he will
Our actions that represent Jesus, people see and take note, and they can tell that we love the Lord with all of our heart
That the Lord will protect me no matter what, where ever I am
The Lord is SO GOOD!!! And will always be there for me and have my back in any situation. Jesus is only a prayer away…
And that NC State is the best college basketball team there is and will the whole tournament!!!! :p
