Genesis 18:14
Is anything too hard for the Lord? (ESV)
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"Why Jesus Creates Sex," - Mark Driscoll
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When I was in Grade 8, a new kid showed up to our junior high band class. I went and asked his name to which he replied, “Vanilla Ice”.
From then on, most people called him ‘Ice’, a name suiting to his unique character and ability to stand out in a crowd. Ice started come to church with my family (a requirement for people who wanted to sleep over on Saturdays) and became like a second son to my parents. He never make a commitment to Christ, but was very open to hearing more and loved asking questions about all things pertaining to church, God and Christianity.
After high school I moved away and Ice stayed in Grande Prairie. With an exceptional ability to communicate and relate with people, Ice became very successful in selling cars. We drifted apart over the past 6 years, and I never really heard much more than what Facebook would tell me.
Then one day I got a message from Ice saying, “I’m moving to Langley!”
Since high school, I had been praying for Ice to come to know the Lord. Just as I think we all have those 1 or 2 individuals that we can’t shake from our mind whenever a Pastor asks, “Pray for the lost”. Ice was that person for me and so when I heard he was coming to Langley, I immediately thought God was going to do something great in his life.
He arrived a few months ago, and we went for dinner once. It was fine catching up, but never really went beyond the surface. To be honest, it didn’t seem like anything was going to change.
We would text back and forth the standard, “We should get together more often”, but nothing ever came out of it. Then last Thursday I got a facebook message from Ice that said:
“I really need to talk to you.. about alot.. Random I know.. I think it will be a pretty long chat soooo whenever you have time man..
there is something telling me to do this… something Ive never known…”
We met on Friday for lunch, and as I walked up I saw he already had tears in his eyes. Ice opened up about all the years since high school, and how he got involved with drinking and drugs. No matter what material wealth he accumulated, he continually had an empty void. He said he felt like he was living a fake life and that the amount of drugs he was doing was 4 times the lethal limit. He had gone through NA and AA, but no matter how good the principles they taught were, he finally came to a point of breaking before God. The only time he could remember being truly happy was sitting in that pew at church with our family. He wanted that hope and joy in life.
When he gave up and said, “Help me” to God, his addiction was broken. He knew he had to meet with me as I would be able to help get back on the right path. As I met with him and explained what Jesus did and how the Holy Spirit was promised to come to be a comforter, counselor and guide for his life, he said he felt like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders and that he believed.
I am still in shock that this whole situation happened. Let this be a huge testimony to those of you who have been praying for the same people year after year to come back to God. God is GOOD. He is long suffering and in His time he draws people close to Him.
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On one of my trips to visit a church here in Canada, I was billeted with a missionary couple who had retired after serving over 30 years in India. Bob and Ruth Wiebe - now those are some good Mennonite names.
As we talked for hours I tried to soak in their wisdom from the mission field. They told me amazing stories of God working miracles, and one in particular that seems almost too good to be true.
In the early 90’s, Bob and Ruth were serving in Northern India. One day, Bob saw that they had an extra donation of $20 into their account. Since Bob didn’t recognize the donor’s name or location, he gave a call to the Canadian headquarters to see if there had been some mistake. Turned out the designation was clear, and so Bob wrote a sincere thank you letter back to the anonymous donor.
They started exchanging mail with the donor.
Turns out the donor was a couple from Rhode Island who had been missionaries in the same region before WW1. Bob would write what they were doing in ministry, and the donors would reply with much excitement about the places they too had ministered.
This continued for a few years, with random $20 donations coming every once in a while. However, the letters eventually stopped.
While on furlough back in Eastern Canada, Bob and Ruth set off to meet up with the donor couple, but with no address or even phone number they were hard set.
A few years later Bob got a phone call while in India.
“Are you sitting down?” The voice on the other line said.
“Yup - I’m cutting chicken cross legged on the ground.” Bob replied.
“Well it seems that a couple from Rhode Island included you in their will. $10,000 will go to the work of your ministry in India.”
“Wow! Thats amazing, I’ll be able to get air conditioning for the churches.” Bob replied.
“And $60,000 will go personally towards you.”
Bob was floored. Ruth and Bob had just been considering retirement and had no idea how it was going to work out. After raising kids in India and relying on support for their whole lives, they had almost no savings for retirement.
It also happened that the donation was in US dollars, which at the time, was worth almost double the amount. The guaranteed investment funds were also giving about 13.5% interest, so Ruth and Bob invested the money.
With tears still in his eyes, Bob told me that their house, furniture and new truck were all paid for completely by that money.
As I continue to raise support for a salary, there isn’t one week that goes by without me thinking about finances. But I’ve learned once again from Bob’s testimony, that God’s faithfulness is truly to those who serve the Lord. And His generosity will out perform any joy we can try to build up for ourselves.
Some months ago, they finished a brand new skate park in the ‘sketchy’ part of Surrey (Whalley). It’s the same area where we give out hot chocolate and chat with the homeless drug addicts on Thursday nights.
Three weeks ago some friends of mine were able to give some hot chocolate to three guys at the skate park. These guys had the typical look of ‘skaters’, complete with skinny jeans, argyle shirts, plaid overcoats, long hair, floppy toques and headphones bumping tunes around their necks. They looked about 19 or so.
After chatting it up a bit my friends asked if there was anything they needed prayer for. One of the guys, Jack, told us about his mom. She was depressed, on disability, taking many medications, and suicidal to the point that she didn’t want to be in the same house as her children in case she was to take her own life. With tears in his eyes, he asked for prayer.
Lucas, the guy next to him, requested prayer for his grandpa who was an out of control alcoholic.
So they prayed a short prayer and were off.
Because of Christmas, we didn’t get a chance to go back to Whalley until yesterday. We took the same route and wouldn’t you know it, Jack, Lucas and one other guy were there. To be honest we didn’t really recognize them until after pouring the hot chocolate, but after answering questions like, “Why are you actually here giving us hot chocolate?” “Where do you work?” and “What did you get for Christmas?” we realized it was the same sweet guys. My buddy Nathan, asked Jack about his mom.
Jack’s eyes lit up. “Dude, my mom is completely healed, it’s a miracle! She is off all medications even the ones she has been on for 17 years. She is not depressed or stressed and even my sister is no longer suffering from depression because my mom is doing so well. We are getting closer as a family. Thanks so much for praying!”
We asked Lucas how his Grandpa was and he replied, “Well he has been a bit better. He hasn’t been drinking as much and he even came to church sober.”
After hearing the testimony of Jack and Lucas, the third young man spoke up, “I could use some prayer. Could you guys pray for my girlfriend? She has a heart condition and ulcers in her stomach.”
So we prayed for all of them again and said goodbye.
Beyond hearing the sweet testimony of Jack’s mom being completely healed and Lucas’ grandpa getting better, I am learning lessons beyond the miracles. Today I wrote in my ‘journal’ (a new word document):
When we are on the street, sometimes people reject prayer and sometimes they accept prayer. Today I had the realization that sometimes I reject praying and sometimes I accept praying. I generally accredit my rejection of prayer to my own laziness or lack of faith, however I think many times my lack of motivation is due to my misplacement of trust. Often I trust in myself, rather than trusting in God. When I become complacent and rely on myself, I often place fears, limitations and inhabitations on God as well. I won’t pray because; if there isn’t anything I can do about it then I’m under the impression that God cannot and will not either. With only a misplaced trust in myself, there is no reason to pray because I can’t for example, heal anyone.
From my personal experience however, this is far from the truth. The reality I have come to know is that nothing is impossible with God. And so I will refuse to accept impossibilities. Just like the persistent widow, I wont accept sin in this world. I am willing to accept personal responsibility to become an agent of change.
I hope to acquire a new humility to accept my shortcomings and strengthen my ability to pray. I pray that a painful introspection of my own life will lead to a clear vision from God. I will then be diligent to that calling regardless no matter the circumstances.
-Andrew
Friday Night
A friend volunteers with sick people. Last Friday she stopped in after her evening shift and shared a troubling situation with us.
A young man had overdosed about a week before and suffered severe brain damage. His family and the doctors decided that he wouldn’t have wanted to live life like a ‘vegetable’ so they pulled the plug on the life support machines. The young man miraculously continued to survive on his own and so they moved him to hospice to die.
With no food and no water it would only be a few days before he was gone.
Our friend had been sitting with the young man and heard from the other nurses that he had been slightly improving. He could open and move his eyes, he’d flinch when the nurse would adjust his sheet and they sometimes even had him blinking twice for yes and once for no.
Yet for some reason unknown to me, his family and friends wouldn’t visit him.
It was a terrible situation, so we decided to do something about it.
I found out where the guy had worked and called in, but no one had heard of any employee getting sick or dying.
The next morning I found out the young mans name (we’ll call him Matt), and decided to go visit him myself. No one should suffer death alone.
My wife and the volunteer friend got on the phone together and prayed while I was visiting him.
I entered his room and a really small old nurse walked in behind me. She reached up and grabbed my hand and said, “ohhhh I am so thankful you have come to visit!”
She then walked to Matt’s bedside, grabbed his face with two hands and said, “Matt! You are so beautiful and handsome! Your friend is hear to see you!” Then she turned to me again and said, “We have been praying for God’s mercy. Thank you so much for coming”. Then she left.
“Well that lady is h-core Christian,” I thought to myself. I pulled up a chair and sat down beside Matt. His eyes were wide open and staring straight into mine. It was intimidating.
“Ummmm…. I’m Andrew – you don’t know me obviously. Nope I’m not an angel if that’s what your thinking.” (I was trying to break the ice with someone who couldn’t speak).
I shared who I was and why I was there – To tell him about Jesus.
I wanted to know if he could hear/respond to me, so I started with the one blink/two blink method. I explained to him 1 blink = no and 2 blinks = yes.
“Are you Matt?” – 2 blinks.
I played a song on my phone “Do you like this song?” – 2 blinks.
I changed the song “Do you like this song?” – 1 blink.
It seemed like every time I would ask him something; he would have an internal struggle to communicate back to me. I would ask if he could squeeze my hand and he wouldn’t be able to do it, but I could see his neck muscles tightening and twisting as he fought to do it.
It seemed sad but promising.
I grabbed his hand and started massaging it. It was burning hot.
“Well Matt, I’m here to tell you there is a God who absolutely loves you and is here with us now. I’m not sure if you’ve ever read or heard anything about the bible, but I’m going to read some chapters to you and tell you about Jesus. To be honest you don’t really have a choice – sorry about that…”
I started reading from my phone Ephesians 2:1, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins….” I paused and thought…“maybe this is a bad idea. Oh well – keep reading.”
I read to Matt that, “it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not works, so that no one can boast (Eph 2:8)”
I then skipped to the end of Matthew and read about Jesus on the cross. I spent time explaining the Old testament, how people used to make sacrifices as payment to God for their sins – but then he sent his son Jesus to be final sacrifice for all sins. I couldn’t help but keep thinking of the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian – where the Ethiopian can’t understand the book of Isaiah until Phillip explained it to him. I knew I wasn’t just supposed to just read the bible to Matt, I was suppose to EXPLAIN it to him. I felt totally empowered by the Holy Spirit at this moment and felt a wealth of wisdom in explaining scripture.
Different workers would come in and out the room, and I would quickly turn off my phone bible as I wasn’t sure if this was ‘allowed’. One time the nurse left and I turned to Matt and asked, “Do you want me to keep reading?”
2 blinks.
“Ok”.
Eventually I was done reading the book of Matthew and I turned off my phone and said, “Ok Bro, it’s decision time.”
“Just like the dude who was crucified on the cross next to Jesus, you can make a decision in your final moments of life to believe in Him. So what do you say? Do you want to accept Jesus as the final payment of your sins?”
2 blinks.
“Um, I’m not sure if that was a ‘yes’ or whether you just maybe had something in your eye so I’ll ask again, do you want to put your faith in Jesus as the final payment of your sins?”
2 blinks.
“Ok. The bible says if you confess with your tongue and believe in your heart, then you will be saved – but to be honest I don’t think God is too worried about your tongue right now….so maybe just pray in your heart and tell Jesus you believe.”
The second I finished the sentence, a nurse walked in and said, “I just need to give him something to make him feel better.”
She put a needle in his arm and he instantly fell asleep.
“I guess that’s that” I thought. I picked up my coat and headed out, praising God to my car as I had just witnessed him save this young man within an inch of hell.
Matt died a few days later and now he is with Jesus - His savior who he had met a few days before dying. That’s cool.
Other cool things
We are now meeting with the Indonesian guy and going to Matt’s funeral this weekend. I can’t wait to hear this story get even crazier.
How cool is it when the body of Christ is working together?