I prayed and it happened: Part 2
Thankfully I had some time that I could steal on Saturday and Sunday to review the message I was going to give at the jail so I felt very prepared. That is not always the case with me so that was something pretty new. Well, Sunday night rolled around and I experienced a bunch of somethings at the jail that I had not experienced before.
When we got into the gym we noticed that there was not a ton of chairs set up in the place. It was a playoff football night so I expected that there would not be as many people there than in previous nights, but the amount of chairs that were set up depressed me a little. Then the prisoners came in and kept coming. We had around 80 people there which is a good size for our service, but I had never seen so many women before in all my years of going to the jail with Northridge. Half of the group were women and it was good to see so many.
Well, when I got up to preach on Luke 15 there was no movement in the room at all. Sometimes things get a little rowdy but I could have whispered that night and everyone would have been able to hear what I was saying. I could tell that I was receiving their kind attention as I talked about the death and life of the Prodigal Son and gave a gospel presentation. I had determined that this was going to be a straight up gospel presentation with a sprinkling of what we should do in response to the parable as Christ followers and I stuck to my plan.
After I was done preaching and people were getting up to leave a man approached me and wanted to trust Christ as his forgiver and leader. I talked to him briefly about it (his wing was being dismissed) and we both said a prayer where he confessed his sin and asked for Christ's forgiveness. I encouraged him to get a hold of a Bible and read through the Gospel of John. That had never happened before in all the years I preached and was so cool to experience. I was thankful that the guards were allowing us this moment as his wing was way gone by the time we were done praying and having prisoners milling about waiting to be dismissed is not the guards' definition of a good time.
And, as great as all of that was, God wasn't done blowing my mind.
When we got into the gym we noticed that there was not a ton of chairs set up in the place. It was a playoff football night so I expected that there would not be as many people there than in previous nights, but the amount of chairs that were set up depressed me a little. Then the prisoners came in and kept coming. We had around 80 people there which is a good size for our service, but I had never seen so many women before in all my years of going to the jail with Northridge. Half of the group were women and it was good to see so many.
Well, when I got up to preach on Luke 15 there was no movement in the room at all. Sometimes things get a little rowdy but I could have whispered that night and everyone would have been able to hear what I was saying. I could tell that I was receiving their kind attention as I talked about the death and life of the Prodigal Son and gave a gospel presentation. I had determined that this was going to be a straight up gospel presentation with a sprinkling of what we should do in response to the parable as Christ followers and I stuck to my plan.
After I was done preaching and people were getting up to leave a man approached me and wanted to trust Christ as his forgiver and leader. I talked to him briefly about it (his wing was being dismissed) and we both said a prayer where he confessed his sin and asked for Christ's forgiveness. I encouraged him to get a hold of a Bible and read through the Gospel of John. That had never happened before in all the years I preached and was so cool to experience. I was thankful that the guards were allowing us this moment as his wing was way gone by the time we were done praying and having prisoners milling about waiting to be dismissed is not the guards' definition of a good time.
And, as great as all of that was, God wasn't done blowing my mind.
Praise the Lord!
ReplyDeleteJust as I suspected ... not anti-climactic at all! That's generally the case when God is involved ... which of course He always is, come to think of it!
ReplyDelete