Sixty years of preaching brings many different experiences. Some are easy and some are difficult. Some we store in our pleasant memory bank and some we would like to forget.
I met a couple I hadn’t seen for many years. I remembered them as young married folks in a church where I had preached long ago. After the greetings and the hugs, the man pulled out his billfold and showed me a picture of three beautiful little children. He said, “Dan, these are three of our grandchildren. You are responsible for them!”
“Me?” I asked.
“Yes, you. These are our son’s children. Do you remember that night when you talked to me until four in the morning? I was so angry that night that I held a gun on you. You sure gave me a ‘talking to.’”
Confrontations can be scary.
“If you hadn’t been there I might have killed my wife. Without your words, I know we would have divorced. Yes, you are responsible for these kids, because our son was born one year after you came and helped put me back onto the straight and narrow path. I wasn’t very happy with you that night, but because of you we are going to celebrate our 40thanniversary before long.”
God does not always set before us easy tasks. I doubt that Nathan had real happy thoughts on his way to visit David, but he went.
Confrontations can be beneficial.
When God gives you a difficult task, remember he will be there to help you. And when the task is over, how pleasant are the memories! You had no idea how happy I was to see that man click the safety back on the gun that night and unload it. And now they are great-grandparents. The Lord is good. |L
Daniel Gault (recently deceased) of Brinkhaven, Ohio, served churches in central Ohio for many decades. Dan was a noted preacher, painter, author, carpenter, and story teller.
