When It's Ok To Be A Little Late

Friday morning was a crazy morning!  I got up extra early to be at one of the local high school FCA meetings at 7am to promote our winter conference.  Unfortunately however, that didn't end up happening and we will have to try again another week.  Leaving there rather frustrated because I had basically got up early for nothing, I headed down to Raleigh for our Cru staff meeting which started at 9.  I had a whole hour to kill, so I started looking for a place to park and read my Bible for a little while before going on down to the meeting.  I was looking for something like a Sheetz gas station, but just randomly saw a secluded parking lot off the main road and decided to park there and read.  As I read, there was a guy that walked by with headphones in and a hood over his head.  I prayed for him after he passed my truck.  I specifically prayed that God would place someone in his path who would share the Gospel with him that day.  As I continued to read and after five or ten minutes, the guy walked past me again.  I thought, maybe I should share with him, but then I thought "I've had a bad morning and I'm not really in the mood" and to put it off I thought, "If he walks by a third time, I'll talk to him." After about fifteen more minutes I saw him from a distance coming my way again for the third time.  I looked at the clock and thought "well... it's almost time for staff meeting, so I better head out!" I turned on my truck and headed out feeling extremely convicted.  Once I got up the road a couple of minutes, I couldn't take it and I turned around.  I said, "God, if you want me to talk to this guy show him to me one more time." When I got back to the parking lot, he was no where in sight.  I thought, "Oh well, I guess he's gone..." Then something in me told me to take the long way to staff meeting, I fought it for a minute thinking that would be a waste of time, but then decided to take the long way."  Once I turned the corner, there he was!  I pulled into the parking lot that he was heading towards, grabbed a Knowing God Personally booklet and approached him.  I was just straight up honest with him and told him I had seen him walking around while I was reading my Bible in the parking lot and I felt like God wanted me to come talk to him.  (He probably thought I was nuts! Lol) I asked him what his name was and then asked if there was anything I could pray for him about.  He didn't really have any requests, so I asked if anyone ever shared with him how to have a personal relationship with God.  He seemed like he sort of knew what I was talking about, but maybe not too sure, so I asked if he had a few minutes for me to show him the booklet.  He said yes and we went through the booklet!  I read some pages and he read some pages until we got to the prayer on page ten.  I asked him if he wanted to pray to receive Christ.  He said he had heard some of that growing up and felt like he may have made a decision when he was younger, but wasn't living it out at all.  We talked a little bit more and he said he did want to pray with me.  I told him it wasn't about the words in the book, but about his heart's intent and so he prayed his own prayer and then I prayed for him.  Whether he was making the decision for the first time, or if it was a re-dedication I'm not entirely sure, but whatever the case God was determined to send me to one of his lost sheep!  Afterwards, I gave him my contact info because he didn't have a phone and I invited him to get together one day to follow up.  He hasn't called yet, but I'm hoping he will!  Little did I know when I prayed for God to put someone in this guy's path to share the Gospel with him that I was going to be that person!  Afterwards I was about twenty minutes late for staff meeting, but I'm reminded that it can be easy to get so caught up in what we think we should be doing sometimes that we miss the things that God is really calling us to do!