Saturday, December 8th, 2018
Jacob was wasted on drugs and alcohol when he came to visit his mother at her home two years ago in September. She didn’t answer the door, so he let himself in. He found her in bed and started talking to her about all his troubles. She didn’t hear a word he said. He got angry and went over to shake her awake. That’s when he discovered she was dead. He told me her lying there cold had about as much effect on him as if he were watching a detective show on TV.
Jacob was in jail for a drinking matter that rose to the level of a felony. When he could no longer deaden the pain of how he responded to his mother’s death, a giant wave of guilt swept over him. There was no one on the outside who could help him. Inside, a group of inmates who were strong Christians invited him to participate in their prayer circle and join them in their Bible studies. By and by, he caught Christianity from them and became a believer himself.
I first met with him on October 18 in my role as a chaplain in the Wright County Jail. He had the excitement of a person who had just won the lottery. I didn’t have to do any evangelizing with this guy. He knew Jesus died for his sins and that the Bible was a real story. Every time we met, he was more and more joyful with what Christ had done for him. He didn’t know about Jesus. He knew the real Jesus, as if they talked face to face.
What amazed me about Jacob was how much he knew about the story of salvation, grace, and how Jesus interacts with His own. I delighted in how excited he was. He had started at ground zero a month and a half ago and now knew more than some folks who have been sitting in the pews of churches for 30 years. How is that possible? you might ask. The answer, of course, is that the Holy Spirit taught him through the Bible as surely as He taught the Apostle Paul in the Arabian Desert 2,000 years ago.
As amazing as Jacob’s story is, wait until you hear about Bryan.
December 8th, 2018 at 5:32 pm
“The answer, of course, is that the Holy Spirit taught him through the Bible as surely as He taught the Apostle Paul in the Arabian Desert 2,000 years ago.”
Under our Grand God, in Christ, His purpose is to quicken our souls that we might render service to the majesty of the simple (direct) teaching of the Holy Spirit. This statement is an attempt to repurpose a quote I recently read in a book about the famous South Dakota artist Harvey Dunn. He was speaking about his teacher. His real studies began “under the grand old man, Howard Pyle, whose main purpose was to quicken our souls that we might render service to the majesty of simple things.”
Pat, when I read your profound statement about Jacob’s response to God’s Word, I thought of the artist’s statement. Whether the subject is art or life in Christ, we tend to complicate it. While the Bible sits on shelves unread, their are a multitude of voices in various mediums telling us to go here and their to solve our problems. Only God’s word is living, “penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.” Heb. 4:12