Prodigal:  phew, I am tired.  I need a break from our run.

Me:  I agree it is warmer out here now that we are running.

Prodigal:  Why don’t you share a story while we rest.

This comes from the book  The God Who Hung on the Cross by Dois Rosser Jr. and Ellen Vaughn

 

During Liberia’s civil war, rebels massacred more than 250,000 men, women and children.  Bishop Jerome Klibo lost his father when a soldier burst into the family home and grabbed his dad, who was 75 years old.  As horrified family members screamed and wept, the soldier threatened them all, and then hacked the elderly man to death with a machete.

Years later, Bishop Klibo and the rest of the family were rebuilding their ministry in their ravaged country.  Then a visitor arrived in the bishop’s office one day.  Trembling, terrified, he fell to his knees, then prostrate on the floor, Bishop Klibo knew who he was:  the very soldier who had so viciously killed his father.

The man wept on the floor, begging Bishop Klibo for forgiveness.  His conscience had condemned him for years, and now he was destitute, broken, desperate forgiveness, but knowing full well he did not deserve it.

Bishop Klibo thought about all the times God had forgiven him.  He thought of Jesus, bleeding on the cross.  “I forgive you,”  he told the cowering man.  “I forgive you.”

Astonished, the man lifted his head.  Bishop Klibo called to his wife to make a meal, invited the former solder into his home, and broke bread with him.  He gave him money so he could start fresh…but most important, he passed on the ultimate new beginning of life in Christ.

Isaiah 26:4

Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org