lives - Follow Jesus

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone cry so hard.”

This past July I sat next to a 47-year old man who had attended one of our events. In the service I had shared about Jesus and Peter walking on the water.

“I just don’t know how much of that I can believe,” he said, with tears in his eyes. “I want to believe but how can I believe in a ‘good’ God when all I’ve ever seen is bad.”

He continued to tell me about his childhood and how, as an adult, he had gone to prison for attempted murder.

“I even have a 9-year old daughter that I’ve never met,” he said.

We talked. He struggled. God was moving in his heart. We talked about his life. We talked about Scripture, about how Jesus had called Peter to come and how Peter had stepped out of the boat. He didn’t need to have all the answers to simply trust.

I walked him through the plan of salvation. He asked questions and then he told me that he needed time to think. I asked if I could pray for him and as I prayed, he began to sob harder than I have ever seen anyone cry. Tears literally dripped in a stream from his face.

I gave him my phone number and told him to call and let me know how he was doing. He talked to me the next day.

“Last night,” he said, “I was washing my clothes and a pastor was there doing his laundry as well. We talked for three hours and I decided to surrender my life to Jesus Christ.”

It’s amazing how God puts people in the right place at the right time to share His love. God still changes lives!

Discover more Christian resources at 330resources.org.

If these resources bless you, consider supporting this ministry:

A while back we were leading a VBS at a country church. On the final evening, a tall man walked through the doors. Even though his wife and daughter came to church regularly, he rarely came with them. But on this night, his little girl had tugged on his heart to attend. She had heard us say that we were going to get inside a 6-foot balloon for “family night” and she wanted her daddy to be there to see it.

“My daddy came,” she told me before the service started. I walked over and shook his hand and could tell that it didn’t seem that he really wanted to be there. But he had come because she had invited him.

As we used the 6-foot balloon, we shared the Gospel. We spoke about God’s love, how our sin separates us from Him, and how God can save anyone who is willing to receive Him.

At the end of the church service, this tall, rough-looking man turned to his wife and said, “I’m never coming back here again.” He stormed out of the church and sped off in his pickup.

I remember seeing the wife and the pastor’s wife praying and crying on the front pew of the church. The wife and daughter waited for about an hour before going home. She wanted to give him time to “cool off.”

When she arrived home, his pickup was in the driveway but he wasn’t in the living room. She opened the bedroom door. There he was. She could tell that he had been crying.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But when I heard them say that God could forgive anyone, it made me mad because I knew that God could never forgive me.”

Then he continued to explain how he had come home, gone in the bedroom, and in anger, he had begun telling God all the reasons why he could never be forgiven, all the reasons why God could never love Him.

“Suddenly,” he said, “I found myself on my knees. It was like there was a presence in the room that I had never felt before. I found myself telling God that if he would take me, I would come. I don’t know how to explain it, but God saved me tonight.”

Discover more Christian resources at 330resources.org.

If these resources bless you, consider supporting this ministry:

Follow Jesus

"Jesus must become greater…" John 3:30

Tag Archives: lives

How God Touched a Life

My Daddy Came