“This
is the confidence we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His
will, He hears us and if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know
that we have the requests which we have asked from Him” (I John 5:14-15).
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 hearts 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 was
well known in the system, as one who had earned the reputation to be very close
to the top of the toughest of all time hombres list.
We had a very special two-cell unit
in a 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 he was up to
his knees in Gideon Bible 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 one of his
very tough-hombres when a hard-heart
heard the voice 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 returned to his old stomping grounds- but for a different reason; he
returned as 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,
who 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 alive 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. That I
will do in the third chapter of “The Three Minute Temptation Buster”.
Blessings,
Gramps
No comments:
Post a Comment