We had just left the hospital heading back to our contacts house. Five of us decided to stop at the grocery store to grab a Fanta before heading home. Four twenty-somethings approached us from the side. His name was Charles. I would have missed him if he hadn’t of been wearing my favorite soccer player’s jersey. Cobi Jones U.S.A. National Team. I have an autographed jersey in my house on the wall. He asked what were we doing here and I began to tell him a little about the World Race. Within the first minute he told me that someday he would be a Christian and preach the Word but has never fully chosen to rely on Jesus. “Today’s the day Charles. What are you waiting for?� He began telling me all of the angst that was in his heart. Confessing that he doesn’t know why but feels like he is going to cry. He tells me all the holes he feels in his life. He asks me what I think. I tell him about suffering and where God is in it. I tell him those holes need to be filled. That he isn’t living the fullest version of who God wants him to be. I tell him that Jesus is the only god I’ve ever heard of to come down to be in communion with man to bring fullness of life. I used analogies I have never used before, presenting the gospel in about five minutes. By the end of our ten-minute walk Charles and his friend Leon stopped me. Charles told me that something told him to stop and talk to me when he first saw me. He told me he didn’t have a desire to. He told me when we started the conversation that he was drunk but by the end was completely sober. He told me that I had changed his life. I stopped him there. Ministry would mean nothing to me if I can’t give details of how it affects me. So I tell stories. And hopefully you continue to read my encounters. I hope you feel through your computer that I’m thankful for your words of encouragement. Your support. Your prayers.
Going to the store for a Fanta becomes an encounter with Charles.
I told him the Lord has been pursuing him fiercely. I laughed when he told me that he was drunk but now sober…not because I didn’t believe him, but because that was the Lord really wanting Charles to hear what he needed to hear. That today is the day; that there is fire in his heart that needs to come out; that it wasn’t me that changed his life but Jesus; and that feeling you are feeling right now Charles, that is Jesus beginning to fill those holes.
I think it was God’s sense of humor putting a Cobi Jones jersey on Charles that day. I didn’t want to talk to strangers that day. I could have missed the point of walking to the grocery store instead of heading back with the group. If you think about it, we do that all the time. I mean maybe going to the grocery store has little to do with grabbing a soda and everything to do with who or what God puts in front of you. There are always people we miss. Lets not miss out on our days going places, lets go places with the intent of sharing Jesus. Going to work no longer becomes going to work. Going to work becomes dying to your agenda and listening to what the Lord wants to do with you. I think that you will find that your days become much more memorable.
I hope this blog is an encouragement to those that read it,
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