One morning, as I was about to walk into our Senior Staff meeting, I met a man asking if the YMCA "Prayer Partners" were meeting. You see "Prayer Partners" would meet once a week and it is a time when we do a devotion and list prayer requests for the week. Staff mostly attend it, but occasionally a member will stop by to make a specific prayer request. Unfortunately, this particular morning, I had scheduled a meeting at the same time as "Prayer Partners."
It didn't look like anyone was going to show up for the devotional. I diplomatically told him to come back next week and that I would make sure people showed up...."next week." I am now embarrassed to say, that I told him that I had a meeting to go into and we would not be having the prayer time today. At that point he looked at me and said, "Sir, I do not have a church, but I need somebody to pray for me. And I saw where you had this "Prayer Partners" and I thought the Y could help me!"
I felt two inches tall. How could I have made such a statement? I could feel God slapping me in the back of the head like my father used to do and saying, “Now what did you say?" I shook the man's hand and I invited him to the meeting and introduced him to our Senior Staff team, and for the next twenty minutes we heard his story.
He shared a story of a confused man searching for peace. He wanted us to teach him how to pray. He wanted us to pray for him. "You see", he said, "I believe in God, but I guess the more people praying for me, the better off I am." You could feel our Y staff embrace him with nods and smiles of encouragement. He had a slight mental disability he alluded to, but his real demon is his battle with alcohol. He wanted us to pray for his DUI trial next week. He was scared to lose his license. He rambled on and on about his car, and he threw out a few bible verses he remembered. But you could tell he was lonely and scared.
As he talked I kept kicking my self and seeing his tear filled eyes looking at me. “Sir, I don't have a church, but I need somebody to pray for me." At the very time when I could have been the "Good Samaritan", I became the priest and the Levite walking to the other side of the road. "Sir, I don't have a church, but I need somebody to pray for me." WOW! You should have seen his eyes!!!!
I have often thought about how many times I may have missed an opportunity. How many times have I told our staff and volunteers that the "YMCA is the church for many people and we have an obligation to lead them closer to Christ," and in that opportunity I came within a look into this man's eyes from letting him lie in the ditch.
Before our meeting started, we prayed for him. I hope tonight before you go to sleep you will pray for people like him and also ask God to open your eyes to the opportunities to help people out of their ditch!
1 comment:
Cameron, you may have felt God slapping you on the back of the head for your original response to this situation, but you should feel Him now patting you on the back for turning it around, doing the right thing and then sharing your story with others...including the part you weren't so proud of. Many people tell the stories of how they did some good deed, but it also so helps to hear that others drop the ball - we are all human - but there's the chance to pick the ball up and still run for the goal.
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