And his face still
sears my memory.
The
way he confessed that he believed in Christ’s reality but didn’t want to embrace
Him as his Savior. Didn’t want to commit. Didn’t want to give himself up and
totally surrender to God above.
And that
breaks my heart.
That he was so near to the Truth. That he was
an inch away from the difference of eternal salvation compared to eternal
damnation.
I
can still picture us standing there in the thrumming soul of Fremont with our
Worldview Academy pamphlets. Two guys. Two girls. Just striving to create an
opening. Just trying to reach out and understand and heal that broken heart bared
right in front of us. I could have touched him. Touched him with his ink-scrawled
tattoos and tangled hair and smoldering cigarette and felt that he was blood
and flesh too.
And
I can still feel myself trembling as I try to grasp the words sinking out of my
reach to explain how much Jesus loves him. That He died for him.
I don’t even
know his name.
And
we tried to explain. Tried to help him see that the problem was inside of man
and that we all need help and that Christ gave us genuine value when He valued
us enough to trade His God-life for our bruised souls. How could we have helped
him see that there is a hell and that his decision remains crucial?
Because our
time on earth is numbered. Because the sand is running clean through and the
hand ticks ever nearer. Because any second now, we could be taken away to
another world.
And
does he know this? Does he see? And I collapse on my knees in all my brokenness
and beg God to just allow him to see.
I saw him for
less than three hundred seconds. Yet his face will linger with me for eternity.
Change
now remains impossible. Regret over unsaid words cannot restore anything. The
broken words God wanted said were said. All I can do is pray. And I pray. I
pray for his soul, hands opening, just pleading for a chance that the door to
heaven remains open for that one in a sea of humanity.
Oh God, change
his heart.
I
see him there. A faint outline of muscled skin in ragged shorts and bare feet. I
can see his eyes once again, intensely gazing inside, and I wonder. Has he come
over yet?
