Walking With Christ

Acts 8:26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place.(ESV)

Philip had no clue why he was being sent to this particular road. If he hadn’t gone when he had been told, he would have missed the Ethiopian and would have missed the opportunity to witness in such a powerful way.

A personal story. I’ll try to keep it short.

I was saved around fourteen. I was even thinking about going into ministry. My life changed when I was seventeen and I walked away from the church about as hard as a person can. I became angry and bitter person and would savagely attack anyone who even acted like a Christian. I walked in that desert for more than a decade. December of 2009, my dad was involved in a wreck that should have killed him. It didn’t. I visited him in the hospital twice a day every single day for almost six months. It was towards the end of this period that I want to share with you. I was visiting my dad as normal when the owner of the company my dad worked for was walking in. I had seen him once or twice but didn’t know much more than his name. He recognized me and stopped me. He said, “Hey, you’re Mike’s boy, aren’t you?” I said I was then he asked, “Let me ask you a question. What church do you go to?”

I was used to getting that question from people and had found a default answer for those times when I didn’t want to get into a fight, so I said, “Oh, we’re between churches right now.” He just shook his head and said, “When are you gonna grow up and be a man?” Then he walked away. That was it. That was the whole conversation. Less then thirty seconds. He could have punched me right in the face and gotten less of a reaction. I went out to the car and cried for twenty minutes before I could even call my wife to tell her that we were going to go to church that weekend.

If Roy Reed had not been faithful and asked me that seemingly simple question, I would not be here today. I would not be where I am. I haven’t seen Roy since that day so I never have been able to thank him for his obedience. He change my life. He changed the life of my wife and my children. Two of my children will never know who I was before that day. That is a blessing.

The point of this story is to say that we never know when the words we say are going to change the course of a life. We may save a life today. We may save an entire generation tomorrow. The cascade of these actions is unimaginable. Each of us have the power to change the world. All we have to do it to be willing to listen.