Me:  Howdy, Prodigal!  What are you doing today!

 

Prodigal:  It is a quiet day and I am just walking around.

 

Me:  Well, if you would like I have a story that I found that encouraged me and I would like to encourage you.

 

Prodigal:  Sure, Lets hear it.

 

This is a story from Tony Campolo

I was asked to be a counselor in a junior high camp.  Everybody ought to be a counselor in a junior high camp-just once.  A junior high kid’s concept of a good time is picking on people.  And in this particular case, at this particular camp, there was a little boy who was suffering from cerebral palsy.  His name was Billy.  And they picked on him.

Oh, they picked on him.  As he walked across the camp with his uncoordinated body they would line up and imitate his grotesque movements.  I watched him one day as he was asking for direction.  “Which…way is….the….craft….shop?”  he stammered, his mouth contorting.  And the boys mimicked in that same awful stammer, “It’s…..over…..there…Billy.”  And then they laughed at him.  I was irate.

But my furor reached its highest pitch when on Thursday morning it was Billy’s cabin’s turn to give devotions.  I wondered what would happen, because they had appointed Billy to be the speaker.  I knew that they just wanted to get him up there to make fun of him.  As he dragged his way to the front, you could hear the giggles rolling over the crowd.  It took little Billy almost five minutes to say seven words.

“Jesus…….loves……me……….and…………I ……….love………..Jesus.”

 

When he finished, there was dead silence.  I looked over my shoulder and saw junior high boys bawling all over the place.  A revival broke out in that camp after Billy’s short testimony.  And as I travel all over the world, I find missionaries and preachers who say, “Remember me?  I was converted at that junior high camp.” 

We counselors had tried everything to get those kids interested in Jesus.  We even imported baseball players whose batting averages had gone up since they had started praying.  But God chose not to use the superstars.  He chose a kid with cerebral palsy to break the spirits of the haughty. 

He’s that kind of God.

 

We need to be careful when we say that person doesn’t have this or that to be doing this type of work for God.  We humans will never be able to look inside a person’s heart and see how God can use that to glorify God.  So why not let God choose and then even if we don’t understand we allow God to show us what God sees.

 

Psalm 34:18

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org