Sitting in my Adirondack chair in full sun looking out over the ridge to the pond nestled on its side, my wonder is not without cause. Fast and furious, God has moved in my life. He waited patiently as His debriding the wounds of my past stimulated the growth of new life within. We often wonder what God is doing as we wait on Him. I don’t mean wait to refer to idly and passively sitting and reclining and watching the world go by. I am referring to waiting on Him as a servant for Christ, to serve as a waiter does when we dine at a fancy restaurant or to wait on a customer who needs our help or to be a nurse to the patients that need our care.
You see, as God peels back the layers of our fleshly nature, He exposes the tender spirit that lies within each one of us, for God created you and me to serve His purpose during our short, earthly sojourn. Some of us never surrender our destiny to the One who created us. They remain cocooned in the callouses of life’s trials as if the walnut hardness of their heart is their shield from adversity, a vestment they wear with false pride to show off their façade of security when in fact if exposed, they would crumble inside.
God used me when I could no longer use myself. Beaten down by the stressors of losing a job, the separation from my work family and the friends I made with the patients who visited me monthly, some weekly, and yes, there were those who were like a wad of gum that sticks to your soul, they seemed to follow me wherever I went; not physically, but these special people were on my mind and in the heart of my prayers.
I had not eaten but three meals in seven days. I slept well, or actually, I passed out in exhaustion, as I don’t remember pulling up the bed sheets as my mind slipped into slumber. I woke feeling like I had no rest; another day to dismantle all that my team and I had built, doubling our patient base and serving with special attention to their individual needs. We did not gossip about a patient’s issues or how they behaved or their naivety as to how they could have prevented or should be rehabilitating the sorry state their body and minds had diminished to. And if I would overhear how another had treated the soul in need that stood without hope across the counter, I admonished them for their lack of grace and gratitude that they were on this side of the counter and not the one presenting with issues be it physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual.
You see, God has given you divine purpose for your life, a calling every day of reaching out and touching someone. Maybe you work at a call center, hearing voices and imagining faces. You may encounter the gruff, the impatient, the intolerant, and yes, those who you call insane. Yet, that is your opportunity to shift the situation to a resolution, if not only an understanding of their situation. Remember, it is their situation, not yours. You don’t need to own it rather, your purpose is to listen, to wait, and then to respond with the unction of your spirit, and if, my dear friends, if you have asked Jesus to live in your heart, then you know without a doubt that that feeling inside, that voice in your head, the shiver up your spine, or the goose bumps that raise on your arms, you know that the Holy Spirit is vying for your attention and wants your obedience. But if, you allow the callouses on your heart to be a shut door on the knock from without, you will miss the divine appointment that God setup for this neighbor in need, and also for you. Yes, when you give, you also, receive.
I was taking a smoke break during the weeklong monsoon, physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted from the dismantling of my job. My role was terminated; my sheep would become lost. I stepped out into the rain and flipped my butt to the street. Litter. Trash. I had not considered it such before. My mind was depleted of any conscious brain wave, exposing the deep recesses of gray matter of the autopilot of survival. I picked up the butt and pocketed it. Every butt counts.
“Every soul counts. I have a street ministry.” These words I spoke bypassed any conscious thought of mine. “No,” I replied to myself, “I have a ministry with the patients across the counter.” Returning to the work of closure, I had to be led by my team that supported me. Their leader who trained them and then delegated every responsibility to them, except only those by law I had to complete, could no longer lead. Is it not a blessing that when you are not present that you can count on your team to finish the game – attributes of a great coach?
Just an hour later, I needed another break. Now hear me, during my typical 10-hour workday, I would venture outside only once for a 5-minute break. That day, I found every excuse to escape my work burrow and find the solitude of the cloaking rain. Tugging on another cigarette, my habit for calm had tripled during this traumatic separation from the hundreds of souls that I cared for.
A tall youth dressed in a T-shirt and shorts, shouldering a backpack walked through the rain. What is he doing out in this soaking weather? Shouldn’t he be in school? Only a duck could love this incessant rain. He approached me and withdrew a tattered cigarette, ragged at the end from a previous smoke, or had he found it lying in the only dry spot under the eave?
“Can I have a light?” the youth asked.
I fumbled in my pocket and handed him my lighter. He lit up and handed it back to me. His cigarette went out, the tattered end not taking up the flame.
“Can I have another?”
I handed him the lighter.
“Keep it,” I said. I had another in my pocket. How gracious of me.
He lit up, puffing until smoke hung around his face like a fog encompassing a mountaintop. Pocketing the lighter, he asked, “When’s the bus come by?”
How should I know? You think I’m just hangin’ out here in the rain to catch the bus. I have better things to do. Or did I?
“Only a duck could like this weather,” I said idly to break the silence. Why does he continue to stand here by me? He got his light. His cigarette is gone. Yeah, next question is, “Can I have a buck for lunch?” Yeah, right. Bummin’ for your next fix. Oh, Jesus, I can be so judgmental! But thank God, the Holy Spirit jumped ahead of my wayward thoughts. He needs help. No different from the patient across the counter. Ask him if he believes that Jesus is his Savior.
What? Now look, I have taken whatever course or schooling that my church has to offer about being filled with the Holy Spirit, about spreading the gospel, but what does that really count for if . . . I don’t stop waiting and start doing? What does it mean to “spread the gospel”? Like butter on toast. Yeah, like butter on toast. Crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Butter that melts and soaks in. I get it. Like butter on toast.
“Do you believe that Jesus is your Savior?”
He looked at me and immediately said, “I believe in Jesus and devils.”
Hmmm, my spirit quickened with discernment. Something’s not right here.
“Yeah, if you believe in good, there is certainly evil. Since you see light, you know that there is darkness. So, my name’s Jeremiah, what’s yours?”
“Thomas.”
“When do you graduate, or are you finished with school.”
The question seemed to befuddle him and he stumbled over his reply, “Class of 19.”
I heard the “nineteen” and was confused. I didn’t ask him his age.
“Tenth grade. Two more years. I go to North.”
“What are you going to do when you graduate? What interests you? What’s your passion?” These are questions I have asked my own son, a sophomore in high school.
“Don’t know. Don’t know what I’m going to do with my life.”
“How do you know Jesus?”
“When I was ten.”
I didn’t ask when; I asked how.
“Cool. What happened when you were ten?”
“My mom took me to church.”
A lot happens in a youth’s life from 10 to tenth grade.
Okay, so he knows Jesus. Took care of that. I turned away from him to leave.
Ever ask for a sign from God? Yeah, and you go about looking for it as if God needs you to hunt it down. Likely, if you have done that, you jumped to the wrong conclusion—you found your sign, not God’s.
Stops signs are red on purpose. Red gets our attention more than any other color. That red STOP sign on the corner, ten feet in front of me, stared me down. Don’t leave. He has a question. Ask him if he has a question.
I love autopilot when God is in the pilot’s seat. Often we take the reigns from Him thinking we know best, but I was in no condition to be leading any course of action—I was literally brain dead.
I turned around and found him still looking at me. Stepping towards him I looked him in the eye.
“You have a question on your face. Do you have a question for me?”
“Yes. How do I know that God is looking down on me?”
Whoa. Stop the train. This is deep. He didn’t ask me, “Can I bum a cigarette?”
“Do you want to be sure of that, to have no doubt that God is always watching over you?’
“Yes.” He stood there waiting.
Now, I’m 60 years old, and I was looking up at this young man—he had graduated from youth to a man in my eyes, yet his question is one that any father would want his son to ask him—and so does Father God.
“Well then, let’s ask Jesus into your heart, then you’ll have nothing to worry about because Jesus will always be with you in Spirit and live in your heart.”
I had his attention. I don’t know, maybe I appeared as a wise man, not something you often find on the street. Wise men are too busy doing wise things like . . . like what? Every butt counts. Every soul counts.
“It’s really quite simple. All you have to do is believe that Jesus is your Savior, and from your heart, ask Him in. Jesus is waiting for you.”
No religion here. No preaching, no judging, no condemning, just plain ole love for your neighbor. Who’s your neighbor? —The guy or gal within shouting distance of you or within your sight or even halfway around the globe.
This tenth grader was at a decision point about his life, his eternal life, and at the turning point for receiving God’s destiny instead of the path he was on. You see, he was acting kind of quirky; his speech sounded weird; his mannerisms one that some may have made fun of. Was he on drugs? No, I don’t think so. We often mistake a person’s impairment to be self-induced when in reality there is a disability that one was born with, or worse, that a traumatic home life caused. Do not judge. Reach out and touch someone.
“Do you want to be sure that God is always watching over you, that you will have eternal life in heaven with Him? That means forever, like when you die, your soul lives on with Jesus. Forever, man, like it never ends.”
“I do.”
Yup, that’s what we say at the altar, a marriage vow.
“Okay, let’s do it. If you will, I’ll say a few words and you repeat them, but say them from your heart. Okay?”
He nodded and bowed his head.
During the seconds that passed before I spoke, I looked out on the rain. Rain from heaven, blessings of renewal and growth.
“Father God, it isn’t by chance that I am standing with this young man, a son of yours that wants to know without a doubt that you care for him, that you love him, that you will never let him be lost without direction, without purpose, without a destiny for his life. He has come willingly, and we pray these words together, for I also speak them into my life as I do his.”
I looked over at Thomas, his head still bowed, humbly waiting.
“Repeat after me, Thomas . . . LORD Jesus, I need you . . .” Thomas faithfully followed my prayer, and I have no doubt that he spoke them from his heart:
“. . . I want you to live forever in my heart in Spirit, your Holy Spirit. Guide me to what is right, and steer me away from what is wrong. Forgive me for all that I have done wrong. I turn away from what I know is not good for me, and I count on you to make me wiser than I am now to know what is right and what is wrong. Fill my heart with your love, purify my mind and snap it to attention, to soak up all that is good to learn and know and to filter out the evil of this world. I receive you as my Savior, my Redeemer, in Jesus name. Amen.”
He looked at me and I said, “Hey, if you say Amen it means ‘so be it’.” It’s done Thomas, you are a brother in Christ, one of God’s children that He will always protect.”
For the first time during our encounter, Thomas smiled. “Amen!”
I walked through the rain and looked back over my shoulder. Thomas was gone. I looked over my other shoulder, and there he was, striding through the rain in the opposite direction of the bus stop. He had turned away from where his path was taking him.
As the rain showered over me, I heard that voice within—I have a street ministry.
Jeremiah's Journey is stories of dreams, of adventures, of compassion and love. Take the ride with Jeremiah and begin with Jeremiah's Journey – 1: Roses Are For Lovers
Praise to my Father for the words He speaks to me.
Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
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