Hey Gang: Do you have confidence before Him? Have you asked Him for something according to
His will? Have you planted a seed this
day that will grow into a beautiful flower?
Throughout the New Testament we find Jesus words, “Ask and I will give you the desires of your heart”. What are the desires of your heart?
And now for the rest of the story! As a government employee working in a
government facility with government controlled kids, there was the ever present
“BIG BROTHER” awaiting to pounce on anyone who approached a kid with an olive
wreath in their mouth, no matter if their heart’s desire was to find something
that would fill that empty place in their chest cavity.
Let me put some meat and potatoes on
that statement. It was a rainy night in
California, which was very unusual for that time of the year, when the Boys in
Blue brought one of those tough hombre kids into the facility for holding. He had earned the reputation to be very close
to the top of my ‘toughest of all time hombres’, so we felt it was best to keep
him separated from the rest of tough hombres in the section.
We had a very special two cell unit,
in another part of the facility, that was separated and especially secure. It consisted of a cell of steel inside a cell
of re-enforced cement with provision for me to be able to care for his needs
without opening the steel door.
For the sake of time and space,
let’s jump to the chase of the story about this dangerous hombre. As a senior counselor, it was my job to check
the tough hombre every half hour. On one
of the rounds he asked for something to read.
It was the first time I knew that he could be civil and accepted it as
positive.
Now, I confess, he had given me
enough grief, in his short tenure with us that, when I gave him a Gideon Bible
it was not for the right reason and he did not accept it for the right
reason. On the next check-round he was
up to his knees in ible paper. On the
next check round I found the very tough hombre sitting against the wall with a
piece of Bible paper in hand. And then
it happened, he asked for another Bible.
You see he had only half of the story and he desperately wanted the
other half.
That night Satan lost on of his very
tough hombres when a hard heart heard the Word of Jesus and said, “Yes, I would
like to give you a try.” Several days
later tough hombre was transferred to another facility where he was sentenced
to spend ten or more years for his transgressions, but God had something else
in mind for him! The door opened for his released in two years and he went to
old stomping grounds, but for a different reason –now he was an evangelist to
the kids that were traversing the same wide road that held him in bondage.
You see God changed the heart of
that tough hombre that night before my very eyes to show me that all of those
tough hombres that had passed through my life could traverse the same road that
Larry traversed, if I would follow Jesus’ mandate and, if I would recognize
that they, too, were not mere case files but real life living creations of God. I began to realize, that night, that God was
leading me away from locking up bad hombres to bringing light into the lives of
children who have not had a fair shake in their lives.
With your permission I want to add
one more chapter to this story.
Blessings,
Gramps
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