A RELUCTANT CONVERT

Last Friday, one of the program officers at the Wright County Jail stuck his head in a room where inmates were working on transition matters and asked, “Anyone here want to see the chaplain?”

Soon a young man named Ron L came into the chaplain’s room and looked at me as if I were from another planet. “What’s a chaplain?” he said after he settled into the chair opposite me. That was a first.

“Do you know what a counselor is?” I asked. He nodded. “Well a chaplain is a person who’s a counselor to the spiritual life.” He nodded again.

“How’s your spiritual life?” I asked Ron L and quickly gathered that he didn’t have one of those. “Do you believe in God?’ A nod. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ?” He said he guessed so and then proceeded to tell me that his was a hopeless life. He didn’t give specifics, but if he had told me he had just lost his wife, kids, job, truck, and favorite dog, it wouldn’t have surprised me.

“Would you like a better life?” I asked. He nodded. That was my opening to explain the plan of salvation to him and pray the ABCs prayer of salvation with him. When we finished, I asked him if any of that had gotten through him. “Not really,” he answered.  He said he had a Bible in his cell, so I suggested he read chapters 1, 14, 15, and 16 in the gospel of John and sign up to see me again next week. I also suggested he come to the Gideons Bible Study on Sunday and that I’d be there. He said he would.

Well, Ron L didn’t show up on Sunday and whether he’s signed up to see a chaplain this next week, only God knows. I”ll find out Friday. In the meantime, can you pray for Ron L until that time that the Holy Spirit will put in him a desire to show up this Friday for another appointment with Him. And pray if that happens that the Holy Spirit will give me the right words to say to him to sign up this young man as a Christ-follower. The Monday morning prayer group I belong to is praying for him. A few other prayers wouldn’t hurt.

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