TheRebelution.com: The Modesty Survey

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Too Much Complaining

I don't like being late (this is news to people back in St Louis), so I'm always in a hurry in the morning to get to work on time. This usually means that I don't get many opportunities to talk to people. Then, if I get a ride home, as opposed to catching the bus or biking again, I don't get a chance to talk to anyone who isn't saved. This was the source of my complaint to God that I didn't get any good adventures in the morning, just passing out tracts and riding up US 19 (which, admittedly, is an adventure in itself, but not too hair-raising).

Well, I was running behind this morning, but I knew from experience that the Lord wasn't going to just let me speed through, so, rather than keep changing gears to full speed and have to stop on a dime to give out another tract, I just pedaled as quickly as possible in gear 4, which is easier than, but not as fast as, gear 7. I figured that I still might make it on time.

I did have to stop going down that bridge that starts at 38th Ave N in order to hand tracts to two guys coming up. One of them said, "I don't know if we wanna do this [Jesus thing] the way we are right now."

I had no idea what he meant by that, but I responded, "That's why I gave it to you," meaning that whatever sin he was enjoying right now was the very reason I was bringing Christ to his attention. Then I saw a young lady walking below the bridge, and, feeling the command from the Lord, I circled once I got to the bottom, gave her a tract, and then moved on.

I stopped at the Sunoco at 58th Ave to give on man a tract, and, when I had turned from him, my light was red, so I went back into the lot to tract a lady who was by the air pump. But then I realized that she had a blown tire.

"Need some help?" I asked.

"Yes, please," came the reply. As I tried to remove the tire, I called my boss to say that I would be late. I only had seven minutes, and I wasn't going to make that, even if I tried; but this delay here would also cost me.

The lady apologized for making me late. I told her that I was going to be late anyway. And, in any case, Jesus had told me to stop and help her, so it was His problem (as if it were a problem to Him--HA!).

I told her that I had started to go on after handing that guy a tract but had turned around to give her one, too, before realizing that she actually needed more than that!

Turns out it was her mothers car, and her mother is elderly. She was just going to wash the windows on her mother's car, but the tire blew only a couple minutes before I had come up. She didn't know how to change the tire, so I showed up. I told her that this was how Jesus was showing His love to her mother, because He knew about the tire, and He didn't want her to be in it when it blew; so He had her daughter, this lady, drive it this morning instead, and (I didn't cover this part with her) He sent her to a gas station that I ride by every day in order to make sure that she had the help that she needed. This was important to her, because her mother (and she herself) have lost several family members to death, that invincible enemy of all mankind, in this past year. So knowing that God loves them was really a necessary message.

I further spoke of how sin was the underlying cause of death, Adam's sin, our sin, or others sinning against us (like murder), and how Jesus, the only Perfect Man, had come down from the throne of God to live the perfect life and thereby give us victory over sin and death. And now He freely offers to all of us the abundant life--the life that overcomes both sin in this life and death in the next.

I owed the Lord a huge apology for trying to run ahead of Him when He was deliberately trying to make me late for work this morning. He was keeping His appointment with that family just in the nick of time.

No comments: