Freeing Others

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

When you gain entrance into the life of another for the purpose of setting them free, you gain entrance into "The Life". - yours truly

I began working at a new place and was being introduced to some of the designers I'd be working with. The very first time I met this particular man, God spoke to me as clearly as He ever has. He told me that I was to give him the gospel message. This man's appearance reminded me of the guys I used to run with back in the day. He had a shaved head, big black sideburns and a goatee. When we were introduced he looked me right in the eye, shook my hand hard, didn't smile a bit and said "hey".

I told God that He must be mistaken about wanting me to give this man the gospel message. I told him that it would be awkward and strange. I told Him that I needed to befriend him first, build some trust, find out what his needs were and try to meet them (all the conventional stuff). God said "No you don't. You just need to obey me and do what I tell you to do. And by the way, you need to do this in an aggressive, confrontational way." I said no -- I don't think that's going to work with this guy. Of course what I was really thinking is that I didn't want to make this dude mad at me. I said to God, what about that much smaller, less intimidating looking man wearing the pink shirt? Don't you care about him God? He looks like he probably needs the most help. Fortunately, there was no escaping God's persistence so I began looking for an opportunity to share. That opportunity came the very next day during a conversation we were having....

On a side note -- It was right around this time that I discovered the very freeing truth that if I engage the people around me in conversations that focus on things other than sports and weather - and then really listen to them - nearly every conversation ends up with us talking about meaning, happiness, security, truth, peace, joy, comfort, friendship, acceptance, love...all of the things that Christ and His people have to offer. Granted it rarely happens in the first conversation or two but it does ALWAYS happen eventually. And when the conversations begin to turn toward things that matter, it sometimes feels like they begin leading me into conversations about God....

...Anyway, the company we were working for at this time had a no proselytizing clause in their human resource manual so I invited him to go to lunch with me - somewhere away from work and on our own time. That lunchtime conversation was pretty rocky. He was aggressive and negative nearly the entire time. He was seeking answers to some important questions, but he didn't like the answers I was giving. Turns out he'd been a bit "inoculated" to the Truth by some well intentioned, but misguided Christians when he was younger. Back in the office he continued being generally aggressive and negative. I said "see God, what did I tell you?" God said - be more aggressive - ask him if he wants to fight. Okay - let me provide a little context here....I had just begun training in martial arts and this man and I had been discussing how that was going. He actually had a pretty decent martial arts background. I told him that training only once a week really wasn't enough and that I'd like to train during the week at lunch somehow. So I approached him and very gently asked him if he would please be my sparring partner. All of his aggressive and negative behavior instantly stopped! He immediately agreed to help me out. We began working out together 3 or 4 times a week in the company gym. It was a great time to hang out and talk about life in general. I never forced the conversations to go deep, and yet more often than not - they did.

In addition to working out together at lunch, we began taking our breaks together during the day. It allowed for quite a bit of conversation. After a few months he began to trust me more and divulged that he had been in bondage to anxiety, depression, alcohol and pornography for quite some time. Fortunately (I guess?) I had experienced some of these same terrible yokes so I could relate to him. His anxiety had become so bad that he was having invasive, horrible thoughts about harming his wife and children. He lived in constant fear that he was loosing his mind. He was deathly afraid of hurting his family and had even thought seriously about ending his own life. After only a few conversations discussing the similarity between a person with diabetes needing insulin and a person with low serotonin needing a medication to keep that chemical circulating longer, he agreed to go see a doctor. In his thinking, just like many folks, there was a stigma attached to people needing help with the chemicals in their brains (i.e. serotonin) - but no stigma attached to people needing help with the chemicals in their bodies (i.e. insulin). The doctor prescribed him some anti anxiety medication and it all stopped. Years and years of dealing with this horrible yoke and it just...... went away - nearly overnight. The Truth had begun it's job of setting him free.

My place of employment during this time is the same company I referred to in the essay entitled FREEDOM! that I recently sent out. This relationship with this man was occurring right in the middle of my own journey toward freedom. If you remember, I received an incredibly long one month notice from this company. On my very last day of employment, he and I were in the gym and had just finished another sparring session. We were absolutely worn out and were sitting on the floor trying to catch our breath (okay me more than him). He starts talking about a "strange experience" he had just the night before. He says "I was in my children's room praying with my youngest girl. We finished praying, I look over to see my wife praying with my oldest, and I think to myself - HOW and WHEN did this happen??!!" (This was a man who, in one of our first conversations, said that he was a Christian - so I asked him if he believed in Christ. He, very angrily said no! Why do I have to believe in Christ to be a Christian? No kidding. And he's a very intelligent man. No kidding.) When he described the journey he'd made in less than a year - my eyes began to well up. I began to praise God for calling me to stay put at this company until He made it perfectly clear I was suppose to leave. What timing! The very last conversation I have with this man on my very last day of employment. Even if God hadn't used the next few weeks of unemployment to lead me into freedom from worry about my career - this one conversation was worth the world. There's so much more to tell about this remarkable relationship with this new man of God but I'll save that for future emails.

Galatians 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.