12/05/09 Carl, 62
Late night at the grocery store I began a conversation with a man named Carl and soon found out he is a fellow believer. I asked how he came to faith in Jesus and he said "You wouldn't believe me if I told you!" "I'd love to hear about it" I told him. Carl had been "drinking and drugging" every day for 25 years until a Saturday night in August when he was 40 years old. He sat down in his hotel room and turned on the radio to listen to some jazz while drinking some vodka. At midnight a religious station took over, and as it began its opening song, Amazing Grace, Carl told me that all the true meaning of the song suddenly became clear to him. He closed his eyes to listen and when it was over, he opened them to a vision, which he described to me in detail, of Jesus on the cross, telling him, "I did this for you". He was overwhelmed with extreme guilt and began sobbing. At some point he turned the TV on and fell asleep. When he woke up Sunday morning a televangelist on TV described his situation in miraculous detail and prayed for him, and later that day in another vision God ordered him to start reading the Bible. Four months later, Carl lost all taste for alcohol and drugs, and has been following Jesus for 22 years now. I'm thankful for the wonderful fellowship I enjoyed with Carl as we encouraged each other to continue following our Lord.
Gospel conversations from the streets and marketplace....
3 comments:
Hey Jeff! Check this out,this was so cool. I went to the library today to go online. I had to go to the high school to pick up my friends son, so I thought I would print off your witnessing stories so I could read them while I was waiting for him. After I parked, I was listening to this Elvis gospel cd I just checked out at the library, and as I was listening to the song Amazing grace,I started reading your story about Carl. Right when I read amazing grace in your story, Elvis on the cd sang those words amazing grace at the EXACT same time,it was trippy and cool. I'm not sure why that happened, but it made me think of Carls story, how the Lord's timing is always perfect and even to the smallest things in our lives like what I just told you. God is so good, and He is SO involved in our lives down to the tiniest details. Amazing story about Carl, God is so good isn't He???:) Have a good one!
The next morning I had pretty much decided not to share this story in church, but guess what song they played right before it was time to speak? Amazing Grace of course, so I had to tell people about it. Some might say this was a coincidence, but one of the things Carl and I talked about was how God does so many "small" miracles in our lives - incidents that to us are nothing less than a miracle of God but they are small enough that they don't mean much to others when we try to share them. I think this is God's way of encouraging us without causing us to become too proud about it...
Jeff, that's way cool. Don't you think too, that after we've known the Lord so long, it's like being able to distinguish your own baby's cry among the many babies, you just know His voice,we know our shepards voice. We don't doubt it,because we know it. He has conversations with us everyday, I believe He tries to converse with everyone everyday, but we just have to listen and not doubt and pay close attention. God is so good!!! I'm glad you shared that, it's encouraging to hear another believer that hears Him in the same way,I know i'm not crazy, but sometimes I feel like it compared to others. Thanks Jeff!
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