GOD’S POCKET 2 Let’s set the record straight. No credit is due me for the following story. I have such a distance to go to become the man God wants me to be that I hesitate to even tell it at all, lest I be seen as boasting. Tuesday afternoon I was at a large […]
A GOOD DAY TO DIE Tyler called early Saturday afternoon, so excited and joyful that he could barely contain himself. He was offered a job from Allina Health as a peer-support counselor in the very hospital he was treated at in Minneapolis this summer, following a recovered-addict presentation to a roomful of doctors and health […]
TWO HOURS OF JESUS I visited Tyler at a Christian transition house in South Minneapolis. For two hours he told me what Jesus has been doing in his life through the power of the Holy Spirit. I mainly listened. If you’ll remember, this is the guy who was addicted to drugs and alcohol starting when […]
GOD’S POCKET The young man that I’m mentoring – I can’t call him a former prisoner any longer for he has been freed through Christ – is teaching me as much as I’m teaching him. Here is an excerpt from our conversation last Saturday. Tyler: “I want to tell you about something that’s making a […]
MORNING FOG I drove through a shadow world early yesterday morning on my way from Buffalo, MN to St. Cloud, a distance of 40 miles. Cars on the road looked like ghosts showing two dim lanterns, the trees and buildings off the highway barely visible in the shadowy mist. Friends, even on a bright day […]
MY STATUS Driving into Minneapolis last Monday, I prayed a wandering prayer. “Oh Lord, all the cars on the road, all the people in the city, who am I on my own? Only an insignificant identity, nobody, unknown except by a few, of no significance or status, of no great value to the world, a lonely […]
PRAYER WORKS I have a friend (whom I’ll call Jack) who is involved in prison ministry but not as a Gideon. There was a young man (whom I’ll call Arlen) who was distraught about transitioning out of prison and broke down in a study Jack was leading at a county jail. I’ll let him tell […]
NEW HOPE FOR TYLER Tyler, the young man I have been mentoring, called me yesterday from his new residence for the next three months or so – New Hope Center in Minneapolis. I no longer think he may be merely an awakened soul. He has knowledge of God and the saving work of Jesus Christ […]
AN AWAKENED SOUL A man loves a woman and tells everyone how wonderful she is. But he never asks her to marry him. That is an unconsummated relationship. A woman suddenly realizes how important Jesus is in her life and tells everyone how wonderful He is. She is now an awakened soul. But until the […]
TYLER NO LONGER THINKS OF SUICIDE Ever since Tyler met Jesus, he no longer thinks about suicide and calls me every day from the hospital where he is receiving treatment for drug abuse and depression. I almost have to laugh with the change in him. It’s Jesus this and Jesus that and a Bible verse […]