This morning...indeed just a few moments ago...I had my mind blown by someone who doesn't serve Jehovah, someone who doesn't even know him or really anything about the Bible at all!
A little backstory:
For weeks now I have been talking to a vendor that I see off and on at different stores.
If you looked at him and judged solely off the surface, you can easily see why a lot of people avoid him.
Not only are both of his arms filled with tattoos, (full sleeves on both sides), he also has tattoos on his face and he's missing about half of his teeth.
Within the first 15 minutes that I met him approximately 8 weeks ago, he shared that he had served 12 years in prison and a 7-year stint prior to that. That immediately gave us common ground and I just started talking to him about my own experiences inside those walls.
Some days we don't see each other at all, but there are other days where I see him on a couple ofstops that we share in common. Some days we talk a minute or two, other days we end up speaking for 10 to 15 minutes while waiting for the receiver to finish up with other vendors. I know some people have noticed us talking, I've had comments on it now a couple of different times from various vendors and even some store employees.
Last week, for whatever reason, he decided to open up to me and shared the following statement, (it's not exactly what he said, it's just my best summation of it):
"My cousin told me that God is punishing me for the stuff I’ve done in my life. I don’t really believe him, but when you hear something like that at the wrong time, it gets in your head, ya know? And honestly…I just feel like everybody’s done with me lately. My brother and his wife kicked me out of their house because I complained about his wife smoking weed, my family barely talks to me, and the people I'm trying to hang out with don’t even return my messages.
I mean, I don’t blame them, I guess. I’m a mess right now. But it makes me wonder if maybe my cousin is right...maybe God’s done with me too. Maybe this really IS payback for everything I've done.”
I assured him at Jehovah does not punish people like that, and I even shared the account at John chapter 9 regarding the blind man where Jesus had to correct his own disciples view on the same matter. I also showed him the verse in Ecclesiastes regarding time and unforeseen occurrence befalling us all.
This morning I saw him at a store and he came outside to meet me as soon as I pulled up. He thanked me for sharing that account and said that after he had gotten home to his hotel room, he had googled it out of curiosity.
But here comes the part where he blew my mind...because he told me that he had been encouraged by the Bible for the first time in his life, but it wasn't by the scripture I brought out.
Again, here's what he said:
"Hey, I didn’t read the whole thing, but I liked that part Google highlighted for me...it said that after they threw the guy out...Jesus heard about it and went and found him.”
He said that part really hit home with him because of everything that he's been through. He thanked me for sharing the account with him and said it feels really good knowing that even if everyone else has given up on him, Jesus hasn't.
Now I went into that discussion trying to encourage him by showing him that his cousin's doctrine was wrong, but I completely missed the most important part of what he said: he felt completely abandoned by everyone in his life.
Thankfully, what I missed, Jehovah must have picked up on...because he agreed that I could share some more scriptures with him from time to time, especially if they would make him feel like this one did.
I just wanted to share that with everyone, not to make some huge theatrical point...but simply to reinforce, once again, the POWER of Jehovah's word!!