“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being,
Hebrews 1:3
sustaining all things by His powerful Word…”
During my time in the men’s ministry — a couple years ago, now — I went on a mission trip to Omaha, Nebraska, and in that large and gorgeous city, there is a place where pretty much anything is allowed. The government set up a ‘shelter’ so the folks who are completely unable to escape from the perils of addiction aren’t constantly ostracized and creating danger for the community. It’s a good sentiment; no one should be homeless or alone. Unfortunately, it’s also a sort of trap, too. The people that are — most likely — forced into living there, get stuck and eventually lose hope completely.
I went on the trip looking to have a single conversation with the one person the Lord would lead me to. I ended up finding a young man — named Joe — interested enough to speak with me.
This is the account:
So, Joseph’s question was;
“How can so much power be in One Man?”
Let me recollect how we got here…
“Imagine, though, you and I were to go to war and end up in Iraq together.” I answered him after his rather astute input, “You and I are pretty unrelated,” he said.
“We’re pretty different aren’t we? Haha!” I quipped, before continuing;
“Imagine we served in the same squadron in Iraq, though.”
“Hey! Aren’t you that guy I talked to in Omaha!? Same city, same country — here we are again — same place! We’d have something in common then, right? We’d probably click pretty tight then!?”
“Well yea, I guess we would.” He thought, audibly.
“Let me ask you a question, Joe; what do you see?”
He thought more, so I asked him a similar question to help him out; “You see a lot of pain, and suffering — hopelessness really — don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Imagine now, we’re all wearing hats with projectors on them. The projectors light a picture up, about a foot in front of our faces.” I motion a screen with my hand in front of my face. “Where we look, whatever we see is through the screen of this projector.
“Let me tell you Joe, what’s on that screen is a lie… This;” — I point out amongst the hurting, rejected people; most of them on drugs; “what we see, is not real. Our eyes are broken.”
I continued my story from there;
“I was kicked out of my house about four months ago. But let me tell you, I have so much hope that I will get back to them.
“I didn’t know love before. I mean I thought I did, but in the last four months, God has shown me what love is. And it’s changed everything!!”
I proceeded to tell him that after looking into the Word — and washing my eyes clean — I now have a hope and a passion to bring this love to others. I told him it’s a power, an endless amount of influence we can wield through Christ.
Joseph was floating; his eyes locked on me. “Can I bump you?” He asked. (He needed to confirm I was real.)
I said; “Sure.”
I said, “part of me — the part you see may not be fully real, though. Your eyes may be broken and there is a screen of evil that you’ve been seeing through.
“What got me, man, was the verse that says to “fix our eyes on the unseen…
“Tell me, Joe, how do we fix our eyes on something that can’t be seen?
“I started connecting the dots, man! I read and read and read, and each verse led me more and more to the power of Christ’s love.
“Psalms 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” Right? Well, in that Psalm, a verse says “surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” God showed me it’s not so much that good things are chasing me everywhere I go; it’s actually like a shooting star instead, man. Like, the sparks come from the star, right? They follow the star everywhere but, they are not going to it, they are being produced by it!
“I asked Jesus to live in me, His Spirit is now in me.”
“You know the Lord’s prayer, right? You’ve heard it, “Our Father, who art in heaven…?”
He nods again.
That power is in me now; I make God’s will be done now, on earth, man! You can have that power too!
“You see, God can’t come here, but through us. We bring Him through us. You can bring Him!
“God can’t get in there,” I point to the shelter, I can’t even get in there, man! But you can. You can bring hope and joy and freedom to this place.”
Then Joe asked the biggest question ever;
“How can so much power be in One Man?”
This was the door I wanted to walk through; I realized the one I was looking for, was Joe.
I had to pause. I needed to hear God’s answer. Also, Joseph was extremely high on something I am not familiar with, his brain seemed to need a second to gather itself.
“I used to edit videos,” I started again. “I would put the whole thing together and, often, I would have to add a clip to the middle of the movie. I was outside the film itself.
“So God, He designed this — what we call life — but He had eternity to do it.” (our mind can’t really grasp eternity, so to Joe, I said ten thousand years, instead.)
“Imagine,” I continued some more, “God designing life like a film. He got all finished and saw that freewill was going to cause mankind to reject love and do things that hurt themselves.
“That’s when God took a part of Himself and inserted it into the world — like a movie clip in the middle of the movie. They call Him the Son of God, and he was actually part of God.
“When God’s Son, Jesus, was killed, His Spirit came back to earth. We, now, can have that Spirit in us. So, when God spoke life into existence, when He pressed ‘play‘ on the perfect movie, Jesus was already in the film.
“Your eyes are broken man! Look for Jesus! I already see your hope, I can see good in your future.
“Joseph, you can change things here.”
At that moment, I was pulled away; and Joe was exhausted. The information I laid out to him, though, was not only other-worldly, but it was complicated and life changing.
Joe was presented with glory that day. I believe from that day on, Joe looked at things differently. I left him with this thought;
“Maybe don’t quit drugs, man. But next time you do something, realize that you are aware that you’re going to come down — it’s going to wear off — and you’ll be left in a worse and worse place.
“You want real freedom? You want this same Power? Look to Jesus, bro. God exists. He has your hope.”
Keep going, folks.
Much love to you all.
Until next week!
– God Exists –
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