Going "Looking For Trouble"

WELCOME TO A MOMENT IN THE LIFE OF HMA:

Almost everyday I leave my office for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours, driving around town doing errands such as, getting the mail, sending out ministry packets, making deposits, etc. I still do this myself because I like to drive around the blocks of Sapulpa, LOOKING FOR SOULS. Because I am SPECIFICALLY LOOKING FOR THEM, I usually find them. Today was no different. 

While making my rounds looking for troubled teens to talk to, drug addicts to befriend, belligerent people to pray for...I happened to notice young boy. At first I didn't know that he was a young boy because of his appearance. He is Native American, about 15 or 16 years old, had the mentality of about an 11 or 12 year old and the body of an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers. He was rough, shabby and high on something.      

I watched him walk around for awhile and appear to beg for some money here and there and I finally got the chance to approach him. The conversation went very close to this:

Boy: Hi sir, Can you help me.

Me: What can I do for you.

Boy: I have no food.

Me: That's terrible. Get in my truck and I will take you to get some food. 

Boy: (Hesitated) OK. (He didn't want to let this gullible guy go but he had to figure something out so that he could get money out of me, so he went with me)

There was a bunch of "What's your name? How old are you" Where do you live? Blah blah blah. He lied over and over. He even changed his name...TWICE! When we got to the store I told him to pick something out to eat and drink. He said that what he really needed was groceries but they were cheaper other places and he didn't want to waste my money. hint, wink. I told him that I didn't give people money and asked him if he wanted something to eat? He wandered around and picked out some chicken nuggets and a drink. Don't forget this guy is almost 300lbs and a teenager. I asked if that was all he was going to get and that is when it started to go down. 

Keeping our conversation right out in the middle of the store (so as to cause me to want to just get out of the situation rather than be embarrassed...He obviously doesn't know me) He gets much louder and says stuff like, "You don't care if I'm hungry or not, I don't even have any electricity, can't you just give me a dollar?!" 

I replied, "How dare you! How dare you try to embarrass me. I'm the guy that is trying to help you. You have recently gotten addicted to drugs, you are half high right now, you have been lying to me for 20 minutes, the only reason I brought you down here is to have this conversation with you and I was still willing to buy your food, you are being stubborn, ungrateful and you are embarrassing yourself son, not me. Where are your parents, how do you think you are going to get off of these drugs?.........The boy started crying.

Me: Putting my arm around his huge, sweaty, smelly shoulder, "Let me help you?" 

Boy: Still crying, "How Mr."

Me: "First let me pray with you." We prayed. 

Boy: "Now what Sir."

Now for me speech that I deemed possibly worthy to post:

Well, I'm going to take you home and check out your environment. I am going to re-ask you a lot of the questions that you lied to me about before. I am going to get your number and give you mine. I am going to call you tomorrow and you probably won't answer. I will drive by to check on you and you won't be around. After a couple days you will call me and ask for help. I will pray with you again and tell you that I still won't give you any money but I CAN HELP YOU. I can give you work and friendship and Godly advice and rides to church...and you will try to act like you want it but you probably won't. 

After a few more days I will see you in town and pull up and talk to you and tell you about a special church service coming up and you won't want to go. You will ask for a pop or a sandwich or a pack of cigarettes and I will get you some food again and then you will just wander off. You will call me a couple times high or drunk in the middle of the night and I will answer the first couple of times hoping that it is the answer to my prayers and you are ready...but you won't be. The next couple times that you call me at 2:45am I won't answer. I will call you back the next morning and yo won't answer. 

I will see you or hear from yo again and you will tell me that you tried to call but I wouldn't answer and you were at rock bottom and really needed help and I will tell you that we have been in contact with each other 25 times and you never really want the help that I have and if you are really at rock bottom at 2:45am, you will still be there at 8am. If not, then you were just drunk and my family and I need our sleep as much as possible to help all the people that are willing to receive it and we still pray that you will eventually receive it to. (The it being Him). 

You will begin to run out of options and you will ask for a job and I will give you one and you will be terrible at it but we will keep you around to be able to feed you, counsel you and try to rebuild the basics of getting out of bed, following a clock, following orders, etc. in you. Most importantly we will be able to continue to tell you about and show you the love of Jesus. You will start to break down and ask to go to church and we will take you. You may get saved and "hit the rock" the first time and God will do amazing miracles for you right from the start. But most likely that is not what is going to happen. 

You will go to church and go to the altar and try to pray but never really surrender and keep coming to work and coming to church some but be stuck trying to serve God from your own physical and mental abilities and it will be miserable. You will get caught telling a lie or smoking some dope or trying to steal from me or something and I will confront you very aggressively. You will get so mad and try your best to take it out on me and cuss me and threaten me but it will be so hard to do because you will remember our first fight in the store and your conscience will tell you that I am the one loving you and helping you and taking care of you when no one else will. You have burned every bridge and you will feel no other choice than to burn this one too. You will leave me. 

You will try to be an partying addict and you won't have enough money and you will all of a sudden have too much conscience because of all of the preaching and teaching that you have heard in the last several weeks and months. You will again try to serve God on your own and it won't work. You will want to go back to church but you will have all kinds of excuses like, "those people were always judging me and looking down on me", (and some of them were), but nothing will work for you. You will get more and more miserable, you may end up in a shelter, in a gang or in the county jail, you may attempt suicide but all of your efforts will eventually drive you to absolute hopelessness...EXCEPT....for the hope that we told you that you have in CHRIST JESUS...and you will call me or run to a church in what ever town that you end up in...And that dear friend is what I am trying to get to. 

I am here, looking for you, to go through all of this rigamarole with you, in hopes of seeing you through all of this, so that you can get to the place where you are MISERABLE enough and INFORMED enough...TO GET SAVED AND SEE JESUS FIX WHAT'S BROKEN, HEAL WHAT'S WRONG, FREE WHAT'S BOUND AND USE WHAT'S LEFT TO HIS GLORY. (I'm out of breathe, the store clerk is staring at me, there is a long silence)

Boy: Please, please help me. 

Me: Yes sir. (We ate, took him back, got his real info, and in faith I told him that YOU would be praying for him.) 

I love my life....................

P.S. On the way out, the store clerk said, "How did you know to give that answer?" To which I quipped, "This ain't my first Rodeo :))"

This is the opinions of Rev. D. Todd Sloggett as used in ministry to the Least, the Last and the Lost.  To understand more about our ministries, visit us at www.holinessmissionstoamerica.com.  Contact me at toddsloggett@holinessmissionstoamerica.com or contact us or donate to our ministries at HMA PO Box 12 Sapulpa, OK 74067.