Tuesday, December 16, 2008

My Brother, Jimmy

Last night I had a neat encounter with an individual named Jimmy. I was on break at work, and walked outside when I noticed a homeless man sitting on the patio. After some internal struggling, I began a conversation with this man.

To be honest, I must have looked nervous, because his first words were, "Sir, I haven't done anything wrong!" (I was wearing a white button-up, or button-down, shirt with tie) So I had to quickly let him know I wasn't kicking him off the patio; I just wanted to talk. Actually, I wanted to talk to him about Jesus.

As it turns out, this man knew Christ, and loved the Lord deeply with all of his heart. It was a joy to spend my break and both of us talk about the Lord, and talk about the upcoming generation. His heart was for the upcoming generation to have the scales off their eyes, that they might see the Lord, that they might turns around and get some sense.

This is a brief description, but though I didn't share the message of the cross with him, that's all we talked about. Even though my purpose was to witness to him, instead we both were edified and enjoyed fifteen minutes chatting on the patio.

To be honest, it seems each and every time I am prompted to witness to someone, they end up already knowing the Lord. But that doesn't make it wasted opportunities. Other times I've had the blessing of still sharing and shining some light, and even just encouraging others to share the gospel with others. And I'm so glad I did stop and talk to this man, because we were both encouraged and joyful by the time we had to part.

I have no idea if this will keep happening everytime; I hope to get to share the blessed truth of the gospel with someone who doesn't already know the Lord, but I sure enjoy each and every time I run into a brother in Christ. Every time it has been a tremendous blessing for me - I hope to run into Jimmy again.

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