FOR THOSE WHO BOW DOWN BEFORE HIM

FOR THOSE WHO BOW DOWN BEFORE HIM

Do you remember Joe, who stormed out of a meeting at the jail after I told him I couldn’t help him because he hadn’t turned his life over to God in all aspects. He’s the one who called me “Ridiculous Pat.” Well, I visited him yesterday, and he has now turned the steering wheel of his life over to Jesus, and he is a happy camper who’s studying the Bible for hours on end every day and being an encouragement to fellow inmates.  It’s incredible to see how God can change people who bow down before Him.

But that’s not the story I want to tell. As I finished up with Joe, the program director asked if I could meet with a person in lockup who wanted to see a chaplain. I was the closest thing around, it seems. Anyway, I met with a mentally disturbed black man named Derrick, who talked to me non-stop about his relationship with a woman he loved but could not help battering about when she crossed him. That’s why he was in jail.

He cried out that no one loved him, and he wanted desperately to be loved. What an opening! I told him Jesus loved him unconditionally and explained the gospel of salvation. It’s too long of a story to relate here; it would be several pages. The summary is what’s important anyway.

When I stopped by to see him, the program director told me to sit back from the food slot of his cell door so he couldn’t reach out and  strangle me. She had told me before he seemed to be mentally ill. I thought that sitting back was a good idea, given the agitated state he exhibited. He believed God existed and not much else. By the time I left, he had accepted Jesus Christ into his life. I’ll never forget the look on his face when I prayed for him before leaving. He looked like an angel of heaven, blessed and sanctified all at once. He didn’t say anything, but nodded his head when I asked if he had accepted Jesus into his heart.  You’d never believe it was the same person.

Lest you say, “What a wonderful thing you did, Pat,” let me assure you that I did nothing but share with him the gospel of salvation and the need to leave his old natural self behind and be born again into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God took over from there and did the heavy lifting of transforming him into a new creation. It was His power, not my wisdom or words. I’m so blessed to be able to see what God can do for those who bow down to him.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2017 at 12:36 pm and is filed under My Life with Christ, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.