INTRODUCING JESUS
Acts 8:26-40
Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. (Acts 8:35)
I was just thinking of the youth that came to stay with us when we had the Remand Home for the City of New Westminster, BC. These were teenagers who were in trouble and needed a safe place to live while they awaited the court system, the law enforcement, and the Social Service people to determine what their future would be.
One of them, Barbara, came to us as with a drug problem. She was with us for many months. One day, she slipped out of the house and had a second encounter with her enemy, drugs. She was returned to us by the police. We took turns sitting beside her, hugging her, helping her demons leave her and her body shake off the horrible effects of the drugs she had taken. It was a very long night!
While she was with us, we discovered she was interested in psychology and read profusely on the subject. One day I began to talk to her about God and how God could be a living resource of hope and love for her. I used her interest in psychology to help her understand what a relationship with God could be for her. Then I gave her a copy of the Good News Bible and asked her to read it—the best book on psychology she would ever find, I said.
Shortly after, she went before the courts and they sentenced her to time in a juvenile detention center. It was difficult to see her leave us. I worried that she had so much more to learn and discover about God who loved her so much!
Several months later I went to visit her where she was being held. They brought me to her room but she was not there. So, while they went searching for her, I looked around her bed area. There on top of the bed, upside down and open, was the Bible I had given to her. It was well-worn. What a joy in my heart!
I do not know what happened to Barbara, but God does. I have released her into his loving care. Hopefully another servant of God was there to carry on the task of being a hand and voice of God for her. And who knows, perhaps she is the one who now brings the message of hope and love to others.
Prayer: Thank you God for giving me opportunities for help others and for telling your life-giving story. You provide me with the tools and words to share, to introduce the wandering and the lost to find you. Thank you. May I be like Philip as I proclaim “the good news about Jesus.” Amen.
Song: “Listen, God Is Calling” (Neno lake Mungu) ELW 513 (Tanzanian Traditional)
Refrain: Listen, listen, God is calling, through the Word inviting, offering forgiveness, comfort, and joy.