Chapter Three "God's Heart"
It was a dark night—really!—which didn’t help matters, because I was stepping onto the porch of the neighborhood bully.
“Jeremy, you crazy man!” I thought to myself. Why are you here? I sighed. It was a question I had already answered. I cared about Doug, the owner of the porch, and Doug needed Jesus. Okay, so I feared Doug would thump me, but no matter…if he did, it was a price worth paying.
For months God had been tugging on my heart.
“Love your neighbors, Jeremy, love your neighbors.”
I supposed this was in response to my choice to follow Jesus Christ and that God was supernaturally answering the desire of my heart to serve Him. Deep within me had begun to well up what seemed to be an unending flow of genuine care and concern for people. I had begun looking for individual opportunities to share Jesus with someone, anyone. “Oh God,” I had frequently prayed, “just send someone with whom I can share Jesus today, and open wide the doors.” Door-knocking for the sake of swelling the membership of some church was the farthest thing from my mind. I had made myself available for God to love through me, sometimes at a moment’s notice.
My neighborhood was fair game. I took advantage of the simplest opportunity to knock on their doors with that I’m-here-to-tell-you-about-Jesus look on my face. And why not? Jesus had made such a magnificent difference in my own life; I wanted the best for my neighbors. Over the period of several weeks I visited every house on my street, with modest success.
It was inevitable that a compassionate God would also wish to touch the life of the bully-on-the-block. Doug was my neighbor to the north, a six-foot-six giant of a man known widely for shooting dogs and attracting the county sheriffs to his drunken brawls with his wife.
I choked at first when I sensed the Lord calling me to go share Christ with him. Zeal evaporated. Terror began to ride me like a bronc buster.
No way, Lord! Doug won’t allow me into his house, much less listen to me!
Then I sensed the quiet presence of God. “Do you trust Me? Can you trust Me?” If I wanted to be useful to God, how could I fight Him? Okay, God, here we go…!
For the rest of the day, most of my frequent prayers started with, “Oh God, if I should die tonight.…” That evening I took up my ‘sword,’ ran some of its Bible verses through the remaining brain cells not paralyzed by fear, and walked into battle.
At my knock, Doug roused himself from deep within the house, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly. The porch vibrated with each approaching footfall. Fear gagged me. When the door opened, a monster eclipsed the entire doorframe. Stray rays of interior light strained to squeeze out onto the porch. My brain screamed, “Run, Jeremy, run,” but I stood my ground figuring God was not probably in the mood for a late night jog. Surely He cared about the saving of souls and the rejoicing of His angels.
I stood at the door pondering for what seemed an eternity. My consciousness registered a grunt from the monster that sounded every bit like, “What the hell do you want?!” I almost quipped, “Funny you should bring that up!” But, to avoid a pounding, I simply asked him if I could have just ten minutes with him and his family, that I might share my faith in Jesus Christ. Another few grunts, once deciphered, acknowledged his acquiescence to my request, and a stipulation. Once my ten minutes were up, I was to depart immediately, eliminating the need for him to throw me off the property.
God gave me twenty minutes with the family that night. All fear dissolved as I shared about Jesus with a Holy Spirit empowered confidence.
I didn’t land the big one that night, but interest glistened in the eyes of the man’s family as I talked. God had set the hook, and in God’s time that big fish would land with minimal thrashing on heavenly soil. Doug’s only response that night was, “You can leave now,” which I accomplished without argument. After that night my heart rejoiced every time I saw him. “Ten extra minutes! Oh yeah!”
You would think after a night like that, a man would leave things well enough alone. I would have liked to, but I read more of God’s Word and discovered that just telling Doug and his family about Jesus was not the whole story of living one’s Christianity. I learned that I should add to my words love, embodied in actions: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth” (1 John 3:18).
Okay, Lord, I prayed, How shall I love this guy?
God brought the answer. A week later, Doug wandered up to my front door. I watched his approach through the small kitchen window, not sure if maybe I should run and hide. Oops, God shoved me by the heart right out the door in front of the man, my hand outstretched and a great big grin on my face.
I looked him dead in the eye. “Hi, neighbor, how are ya?”
Looking hopeful, he said, “I have a problem with my truck and I was wondering if I could use your garage to work on it?”
Use my garage?? It was full of very expensive tools and equipment! I’m pretty sure my grin froze on my face. Doug’s request shocked me, to say the least. But then, so did God’s. People are worth so much more to Me than your tools are worth to you, Jeremy.
It was all God needed to say. I gave in to God’s heart of love.
“Sure, Doug. And you’re welcome to use the tools and welding equipment if you need to.”
Doug promised, “It will only take a day or so.”
For three weeks, day by long night, he was there working in the garage. God gave me ample time to just love on him. I helped a bit and hung out with him a lot, discovering that I did care about him and his family and he wasn’t really all that scary, just a giant man with some giant struggles.
I saw Doug often after that time together. He was usually out in his yard when I arrived home from work in the evening. I always made it a point to wave and yell across the fence, “Hi, friend!” His usual response was a smile and a wave. Sometimes we would even hang over the fence and chat about life for a time.
Doug and I lost touch after I moved across town, but I had a chance meeting with his son Tom about ten years after moving away.
“Jeremy,” said Tom, “I will never forget the love you had for my family.” He paused, and then continued. “I accepted Christ as Savior not long after you moved away and I have been serving Him ever since.”
You just never know how far a little of God’s love will go!
~~~~~~~
My neighbor to the south had been clear in his desire that I not talk about God around him. Buster was old and crippled. Childhood polio had left him with a useless arm and a pronounced limp. He subsisted on government help, supplemented with occasional work using his 1947 dump truck.
One day he commandeered me to help him tow a car to his house from the other side of town. He planned to rope the car to his dump truck and I would help by steering the car being towed.
Old Buster was five foot six, bald, had just six or seven remaining teeth and an enormous belly requiring a chalk line to complete a full hug, if he would let you. In the driver’s seat, his great girth pressed itself through some of the holes in the steering wheel. Buster’s right arm hung ineffectually, so he implemented most driving decisions with his left arm. If I had ever experienced a tow ride by a dump truck driven by a Buster kind of guy, I would never, ever, have agreed to help.
The trip began uneventfully enough as we pulled out of the driveway. It was when we hit the straight stretch that concern for my life expectancy peaked. Buster hammered down on the foot feed. The vintage Chevy strained like an old bull pulling a plow through a clay field. It shuddered and rattled till I thought the pistons were going to punch holes through both fenders. At just the moment I felt sure she would blow, Buster’s great roundness cinched up against the steering wheel and his left arm snaked through the steering wheel to the stick shift.
Now, all this wouldn’t have bothered me too much, but when he leaned right to shift gears left-handedly, the great belly also leaned to the right. The steering wheel, and the truck, turned to the left. Buster, apparently oblivious, disappeared under the dash long enough for the truck to veer fully into the oncoming traffic. I lunged instinctively for the steering wheel, but Buster chewed me out.
“Hey! The wheel ain’t no concern of yours. Stay on your own @#%! side of the cab!”
“Someone could end up dead, Buster!” My heart was pounding like a pile driver.
“I ain’t never killed nobody,” he retorted.
I muttered, “You haven’t killed anybody yet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Sweat was beading on my forehead as I eased into the driver seat of the car we were to tow. Buster and the tow truck spent most of the trip home in the fast lane. I planted both feet and all my weight on the brake pedal, eyes closed, screaming silently for mercy. We arrived unscathed, although Buster seemed rather upset about all the smoke boiling up from the car brakes. “Brakes are cheaper than a new car,” I commented, and he calmed down some.
Shortly after the towing incident, I sat in Buster’s living room, hoping that God would grant me an opening to share Jesus with my old friend. Buster’s house was shaped like a lean-to that had never been quite completed. Old Buster had, however, rustled up an interior décor that pleased him. The walls were papered with a great many centerfolds from certain magazines. We sat together, Buster voicing his many opinions about inflation and politics, and when he finally took a breath, I popped the question about sharing Jesus with him.
Buster stared at me, saying nothing. I approached the question another way. “Is there anything I can do for you around your house that you can’t do for yourself?”
Not one to flinch at the offer of free help, Buster informed me to my gross dismay that his toilet was leaking around the floor seal. “I need someone to replace that seal,” Buster said. Bile rose in my throat at the mere thought. Did Jesus ever puke? I wondered silently. Would Jesus fix a disgusting toilet? Uh . . . yes, I’m afraid so.
“I’ll change the seal, Buster,” I said, “if you’ll allow me ten minutes to share Jesus with you in return.” He agreed.
I hadn’t a clue how to replace a toilet seal! I beat a path to Fred, a good friend, and told him everything. Grinning, Fred had mercy. He and I made short work of the repair, and when he left, I spent thirty minutes sharing Jesus with my friend Buster in his house with the voluptuous wallpaper and the new toilet seal. Something happened in his heart that day; he seemed more at peace after our little talk.
~~~~~~~
I’ll be honest—there are some people in life I would just as soon avoid. Maybe it’s their dress, words, lifestyle, or maybe simply an atrocious odor emitting from their pores. I can’t say I really wanted to hang out in Buster’s living room. Many times I have prayed, Oh God, you are really going to have to help me on this one. Inexplicably, God’s love somehow fills me. I begin to care deeply for their eternal well being. Without condoning lifestyle choices, I can choose to love a person right where he is, and let God do the changing in His time.
Living one’s Christianity is nothing more than letting God work through me, and you, with His heart and His abilities. I provide a heart for God to love through, and arms and legs for God love with. If we let Him, God will do all the work.
Dear God, mold me to love like You love … to accept the way you accept … forgive the way you forgive … make Your heart my heart.
“Jeremy, you crazy man!” I thought to myself. Why are you here? I sighed. It was a question I had already answered. I cared about Doug, the owner of the porch, and Doug needed Jesus. Okay, so I feared Doug would thump me, but no matter…if he did, it was a price worth paying.
For months God had been tugging on my heart.
“Love your neighbors, Jeremy, love your neighbors.”
I supposed this was in response to my choice to follow Jesus Christ and that God was supernaturally answering the desire of my heart to serve Him. Deep within me had begun to well up what seemed to be an unending flow of genuine care and concern for people. I had begun looking for individual opportunities to share Jesus with someone, anyone. “Oh God,” I had frequently prayed, “just send someone with whom I can share Jesus today, and open wide the doors.” Door-knocking for the sake of swelling the membership of some church was the farthest thing from my mind. I had made myself available for God to love through me, sometimes at a moment’s notice.
My neighborhood was fair game. I took advantage of the simplest opportunity to knock on their doors with that I’m-here-to-tell-you-about-Jesus look on my face. And why not? Jesus had made such a magnificent difference in my own life; I wanted the best for my neighbors. Over the period of several weeks I visited every house on my street, with modest success.
It was inevitable that a compassionate God would also wish to touch the life of the bully-on-the-block. Doug was my neighbor to the north, a six-foot-six giant of a man known widely for shooting dogs and attracting the county sheriffs to his drunken brawls with his wife.
I choked at first when I sensed the Lord calling me to go share Christ with him. Zeal evaporated. Terror began to ride me like a bronc buster.
No way, Lord! Doug won’t allow me into his house, much less listen to me!
Then I sensed the quiet presence of God. “Do you trust Me? Can you trust Me?” If I wanted to be useful to God, how could I fight Him? Okay, God, here we go…!
For the rest of the day, most of my frequent prayers started with, “Oh God, if I should die tonight.…” That evening I took up my ‘sword,’ ran some of its Bible verses through the remaining brain cells not paralyzed by fear, and walked into battle.
At my knock, Doug roused himself from deep within the house, his heavy footsteps echoing loudly. The porch vibrated with each approaching footfall. Fear gagged me. When the door opened, a monster eclipsed the entire doorframe. Stray rays of interior light strained to squeeze out onto the porch. My brain screamed, “Run, Jeremy, run,” but I stood my ground figuring God was not probably in the mood for a late night jog. Surely He cared about the saving of souls and the rejoicing of His angels.
I stood at the door pondering for what seemed an eternity. My consciousness registered a grunt from the monster that sounded every bit like, “What the hell do you want?!” I almost quipped, “Funny you should bring that up!” But, to avoid a pounding, I simply asked him if I could have just ten minutes with him and his family, that I might share my faith in Jesus Christ. Another few grunts, once deciphered, acknowledged his acquiescence to my request, and a stipulation. Once my ten minutes were up, I was to depart immediately, eliminating the need for him to throw me off the property.
God gave me twenty minutes with the family that night. All fear dissolved as I shared about Jesus with a Holy Spirit empowered confidence.
I didn’t land the big one that night, but interest glistened in the eyes of the man’s family as I talked. God had set the hook, and in God’s time that big fish would land with minimal thrashing on heavenly soil. Doug’s only response that night was, “You can leave now,” which I accomplished without argument. After that night my heart rejoiced every time I saw him. “Ten extra minutes! Oh yeah!”
You would think after a night like that, a man would leave things well enough alone. I would have liked to, but I read more of God’s Word and discovered that just telling Doug and his family about Jesus was not the whole story of living one’s Christianity. I learned that I should add to my words love, embodied in actions: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and truth” (1 John 3:18).
Okay, Lord, I prayed, How shall I love this guy?
God brought the answer. A week later, Doug wandered up to my front door. I watched his approach through the small kitchen window, not sure if maybe I should run and hide. Oops, God shoved me by the heart right out the door in front of the man, my hand outstretched and a great big grin on my face.
I looked him dead in the eye. “Hi, neighbor, how are ya?”
Looking hopeful, he said, “I have a problem with my truck and I was wondering if I could use your garage to work on it?”
Use my garage?? It was full of very expensive tools and equipment! I’m pretty sure my grin froze on my face. Doug’s request shocked me, to say the least. But then, so did God’s. People are worth so much more to Me than your tools are worth to you, Jeremy.
It was all God needed to say. I gave in to God’s heart of love.
“Sure, Doug. And you’re welcome to use the tools and welding equipment if you need to.”
Doug promised, “It will only take a day or so.”
For three weeks, day by long night, he was there working in the garage. God gave me ample time to just love on him. I helped a bit and hung out with him a lot, discovering that I did care about him and his family and he wasn’t really all that scary, just a giant man with some giant struggles.
I saw Doug often after that time together. He was usually out in his yard when I arrived home from work in the evening. I always made it a point to wave and yell across the fence, “Hi, friend!” His usual response was a smile and a wave. Sometimes we would even hang over the fence and chat about life for a time.
Doug and I lost touch after I moved across town, but I had a chance meeting with his son Tom about ten years after moving away.
“Jeremy,” said Tom, “I will never forget the love you had for my family.” He paused, and then continued. “I accepted Christ as Savior not long after you moved away and I have been serving Him ever since.”
You just never know how far a little of God’s love will go!
~~~~~~~
My neighbor to the south had been clear in his desire that I not talk about God around him. Buster was old and crippled. Childhood polio had left him with a useless arm and a pronounced limp. He subsisted on government help, supplemented with occasional work using his 1947 dump truck.
One day he commandeered me to help him tow a car to his house from the other side of town. He planned to rope the car to his dump truck and I would help by steering the car being towed.
Old Buster was five foot six, bald, had just six or seven remaining teeth and an enormous belly requiring a chalk line to complete a full hug, if he would let you. In the driver’s seat, his great girth pressed itself through some of the holes in the steering wheel. Buster’s right arm hung ineffectually, so he implemented most driving decisions with his left arm. If I had ever experienced a tow ride by a dump truck driven by a Buster kind of guy, I would never, ever, have agreed to help.
The trip began uneventfully enough as we pulled out of the driveway. It was when we hit the straight stretch that concern for my life expectancy peaked. Buster hammered down on the foot feed. The vintage Chevy strained like an old bull pulling a plow through a clay field. It shuddered and rattled till I thought the pistons were going to punch holes through both fenders. At just the moment I felt sure she would blow, Buster’s great roundness cinched up against the steering wheel and his left arm snaked through the steering wheel to the stick shift.
Now, all this wouldn’t have bothered me too much, but when he leaned right to shift gears left-handedly, the great belly also leaned to the right. The steering wheel, and the truck, turned to the left. Buster, apparently oblivious, disappeared under the dash long enough for the truck to veer fully into the oncoming traffic. I lunged instinctively for the steering wheel, but Buster chewed me out.
“Hey! The wheel ain’t no concern of yours. Stay on your own @#%! side of the cab!”
“Someone could end up dead, Buster!” My heart was pounding like a pile driver.
“I ain’t never killed nobody,” he retorted.
I muttered, “You haven’t killed anybody yet.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Sweat was beading on my forehead as I eased into the driver seat of the car we were to tow. Buster and the tow truck spent most of the trip home in the fast lane. I planted both feet and all my weight on the brake pedal, eyes closed, screaming silently for mercy. We arrived unscathed, although Buster seemed rather upset about all the smoke boiling up from the car brakes. “Brakes are cheaper than a new car,” I commented, and he calmed down some.
Shortly after the towing incident, I sat in Buster’s living room, hoping that God would grant me an opening to share Jesus with my old friend. Buster’s house was shaped like a lean-to that had never been quite completed. Old Buster had, however, rustled up an interior décor that pleased him. The walls were papered with a great many centerfolds from certain magazines. We sat together, Buster voicing his many opinions about inflation and politics, and when he finally took a breath, I popped the question about sharing Jesus with him.
Buster stared at me, saying nothing. I approached the question another way. “Is there anything I can do for you around your house that you can’t do for yourself?”
Not one to flinch at the offer of free help, Buster informed me to my gross dismay that his toilet was leaking around the floor seal. “I need someone to replace that seal,” Buster said. Bile rose in my throat at the mere thought. Did Jesus ever puke? I wondered silently. Would Jesus fix a disgusting toilet? Uh . . . yes, I’m afraid so.
“I’ll change the seal, Buster,” I said, “if you’ll allow me ten minutes to share Jesus with you in return.” He agreed.
I hadn’t a clue how to replace a toilet seal! I beat a path to Fred, a good friend, and told him everything. Grinning, Fred had mercy. He and I made short work of the repair, and when he left, I spent thirty minutes sharing Jesus with my friend Buster in his house with the voluptuous wallpaper and the new toilet seal. Something happened in his heart that day; he seemed more at peace after our little talk.
~~~~~~~
I’ll be honest—there are some people in life I would just as soon avoid. Maybe it’s their dress, words, lifestyle, or maybe simply an atrocious odor emitting from their pores. I can’t say I really wanted to hang out in Buster’s living room. Many times I have prayed, Oh God, you are really going to have to help me on this one. Inexplicably, God’s love somehow fills me. I begin to care deeply for their eternal well being. Without condoning lifestyle choices, I can choose to love a person right where he is, and let God do the changing in His time.
Living one’s Christianity is nothing more than letting God work through me, and you, with His heart and His abilities. I provide a heart for God to love through, and arms and legs for God love with. If we let Him, God will do all the work.
Dear God, mold me to love like You love … to accept the way you accept … forgive the way you forgive … make Your heart my heart.
