Time Is Uncertain

This story will be in an upcoming Gift of God Newsletter but I wanted to share it here as well.

We see lots of people come through our doors every year at Gift of God Street Church, and every one of them have their own story, their own burdens, and their own pain.

I met Rich about three years ago, soon after I started helping at GOG, and I knew that he struggled with substance abuse. He was a likable guy and well-mannered when he was sober, but a loud, obnoxious, and combative person when he wasn’t.

As I was going to work one morning, I came upon a crash site just down the road from my workplace. There were pieces of plastic and glass and metal strewn for a good 70 feet and then I saw the car off in the ditch and I thought to myself, “surely no one survived”.

I was wrong. God in his mercy allowed one man to walk away from that accident virtually unhurt while the other three passengers died at the scene, and that man was Rich.

We love feeding people, giving out clothes and toiletries, and housing the homeless, but all of that is to provide opportunities to give out the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

A few months after this accident, Rich came to me after the evening message. I could tell he had been drinking, but the tears came down his face and he told me how he didn’t want to continue living the life he’d been living. That night I gave Rich the gospel and he accepted Jesus as his savior.

Unfortunately for Rich, the alcohol and drugs had taken it’s toll on his body and a couple months later he had a work accident caused by the “DT’s”. He blacked out while on a ladder, fell and cracked his head and never woke up. I like to think that we threw the life line out to him one last time, just in the nick of time.

What if Rich hadn’t taken the time to find out more about the gospel? What if we weren’t there to share it with him? Time is very precious and uncertain. How will you spend what time you have left?