Church Blog

When God Interrupts Your Plans

Here’s an encouraging letter that Carolyn McCulley sent in a couple weeks ago in response to my message, Who Is My Neighbor? Let’s all be spurred on by her example of responding when God provides an opportunity to care for someone in need:

Josh,

It’s not every week that I have a direct opportunity to apply the Sunday sermon, but I clearly had one today.

As I recall, you wrapped up your sermon about the Good Samaritan by saying we don’t usually find people lying on the street but we should be willing to respond when we do. Or something similar—it was definitely a challenge about loving people even when we are inconvenienced.

So today I was in hyper-speed, running around the metro area preparing for the Sovereign Grace Ministries Mission Presentation shoot. We’re leaving in a few hours for the Bahamas and there is much left to do. But as I left downtown Silver Spring this afternoon with film gear in tow, I saw a girl lying on the sidewalk, crying. I had precious few hours to get about two days’ worth of work done, but I had no question that I was to be interrupted. I knew this was a divine appointment from my Father in heaven. So I pulled over and Drew (the cameraman) and I jumped out to see what was wrong with her. She was an 18-year-old girl with multiple face piercings and some kind of bloody, devilish shirt on (I never did get to read what that was about). She was lying on the sidewalk in a rundown section of town, crying, seemingly unaware of the filth she was lying in.

So I got out and sat down with her and started talking to her. She was very upset, but assured us she was not hurt. She had gotten into a conflict with a friend . . . and was considering killing herself. I immediately told her that this thought was a lie from the pit of hell and that God had created her and given her life because He loved her. And He obviously wanted her to know that because He had drawn my attention to her. I then offered to pray for her and told her to breathe deeply as I did, so as to calm herself down. We talked to her a bit more and then as she calmed down, we offered to give her a ride home. I’m always amazed when people willingly get into my car when I’m a total stranger, but 90 percent do.

She said she had a 4 p.m. meeting with her therapist, so we drove her to that place and continued to reach out to her in the car. I gave her an invitation card to Covenant Life, wrote my name and number on it, and told her I wanted to hear from her because I was concerned for her. Then I asked if she had a Bible and if she wanted mine. She seemed hesitant at first, but I told her there was no expectation. Then she took mine and I put the bookmark in the gospel of John and told her it was a series of intimate portraits of Jesus ministering to people, and that she needed to read this when she felt oppressed or tempted to suicide—at the very least—because Jesus came to redeem all that is wrong with the world. Then I told her about the Sunday message and how this was all no coincidence. She was much more cheerful when we dropped her off, and I’m very glad for it.

I will be short on sleep tonight, but it was exceedingly worth it to have this small Jericho road experience.

Blessings,

Carolyn