Bus Ticket

Not too long ago, a few of us were sitting in the café in First Baptist Church Tulsa. We were talking and waiting for a meeting to start, when a young girl walked up to us. She said she was abandoned by her boyfriend and didn’t know what to do.

I walked with her to a corner table and we talked. She said she met the guy and he promised to take her “to see the world,” and she was hungry to see what was out there so she didn’t hesitate and took off with him, even though she'd only known him for a couple weeks.  During the journey she learned that he had a drug addiction, was violent and didn’t have any money.

They got to Tulsa and argued, so he crushed her cell phone and kicked her out of the car. She said she had been sitting in the bus station crying for quite a while. But, when she got up and looked outside she saw First Baptist Church. She said, “My Grandma always told me if you get into trouble, just walk into the nearest church.” 

As we talked she realized she made a terrible mistake by leaving with this guy.  She had never been very far from her home town and she just wanted to see what was out there. She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, “I just want to go home and start over again.”

I asked her what she wanted to be when she was a little girl and she said, “A singer.” She said people thought she could sing and so did she. I asked her if she ever pursued her dream and she said, “I didn’t think dreams were supposed to come true.”

I shared that God has a plan and a purpose for her life and that once she has a relationship with Him…He can make dreams come true!  We talked some more and we prayed and I walked her to the bus station.

I told her when she knows what God’s plan is if Isaiah 58, In His Service can help, we’d be happy to. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me a hug.

Isaiah 58, In His Service bought her a bus ticket home.  The first bus was sold out and the next one was scheduled to leave at 3am.  She said she’d be alright in the bus station and I told her after I did a few things, I would return with some food and sit with her.  We tried to call her Grandma to let her know the young girl was okay and headed home, but no one answered.

I finished what I needed to do, so I went to Quik Trip and loaded up on some food and then headed back to the bus station, it was about 8pm.  I looked around before I went inside and she was nowhere to be found. Initially my heart sank for fear that the boyfriend had shown back up and she conceded to go with him.  But, I prayed against that and went inside.  The same clerk I bought the ticket from was behind the counter.  I asked her about the young girl and she said, “Oh, yeah, honey, she got on the early bus, she’s on her way.”

Praise God!  I went back to my car and called her Grandma and she answered.  I told her who I was and that her granddaughter was on her way to start over.  Grandma was relieved and thankful.

So, what was I to do with the bag of food?  I drove around looking for some of my homeless folks and couldn’t find anybody!  I kept driving and finally I saw one.  He was flying a sign and I drove up and said, “There you are, man I’ve been lookin’ all over for you!”  We talked and I gave him the food and invited him to Luke10 and gave him my card and said if he needs to talk or is ready to make a change…to give me a call.”

The next day I got a message from the young girl. She said she was home safe and sound and had learned her lesson and she was very grateful.

I have no control over outcomes. One of the coolest things our Father does is give us a free will…it is our decision to choose to follow Him.  We can say, “yes,” or “no.” But, as Christ followers we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ.  So, that means being obedient to serve when Jesus calls us into action.

I was at church for a meeting that I wasn’t thrilled about attending.  We were in the café because we were waiting for the start of that meeting.  I could have blown off the meeting and not been in the café.  When she said she was in trouble, I could have gone looking for a church staff member and passed the buck.

 

So here's the lesson...sometimes we do things that we don't really want to do...like attend meetings.  But, I wasn't supposed to be at church for the meeting, I was supposed to be there for this girl. I did make the meeting, by the way!

God could have put someone else there, but for some reason…He asked me to be there.  I am so humbled that He chose me! Look what I was blessed to do!  I got to plant seeds and am praying that they will be watered and the Kingdom will grow.  The first step is to be willing, “Here I am Lord, send me.”

In His service,

deni

Are you the same? Have you changed at all?

I went to the store the other day to get some goodies for a little lady’s birthday.  I had a cake and some decorations the usual birthday fare.  I got in line behind someone who receives correspondence from Isaiah 58, In His Service.  After the pleasantries, he looked at me and said, “I got your letter, so I suppose you were soliciting funds.”  Then he looked in my basket and wanted to know what I was buying. I told him I was gonna surprise a little lady who lives alone with some birthday treats. He nodded and turned around and said, “I guess you need money to buy stuff like that too.”

I went to the Mighty Women of God Conference at FBCT a couple weeks ago and listened to the featured speaker, Peggy Nunnelly talk about a woman by the name of Veronica.  Veronica had a family of 5 and she lived in a country in which it was illegal to be a Christ follower. She and her whole household were arrested and imprisoned because of their beliefs, trust and faith in Jesus Christ. The guards brought Veronica’s husband into her cell.  They told her that she must renounce Christ or they would kill her husband. She refused to deny her God and so they cut off the head of her husband.  They brought in her two sons next and told her to forsake Jesus and again, she refused to deny her God and they used swords to kill her two sons.  She and her daughter were eventually freed.

I read this on Facebook, “A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.”

Another life story Peggy shared at the conference;  a woman struggling with substance abuse most of her life, decided to kill herself so she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Miraculously, she didn’t die and she had no severe brain damage. So, Peggy went to the hospital to talk with this lady.  Peggy said the woman had prayed “the sinner’s prayer” many times in her life, yet her life didn’t reflect a relationship with God. So, Peggy boldly told the woman, “You don’t know the Jesus I know because if you did, you wouldn’t be laying in a hospital bed from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Peggy said the woman was incensed and told her to get out and not come back.  However, over time God convicted the woman and she knew what Peggy said was true, she really didn’t know Jesus at all.  So, she talked with Peggy and the next time she talked to Jesus, she repented wholly and completely and asked God to save her.

And He did. The woman is now staying with Peggy and her family as she matures as a Christ follower and is learning and growing to become the woman God intended.

Change.  I am NOT the deni I used to be and I pray I am NOT the deni I’m going to be.  The old things pass away, behold all things are new.  If you drank alcohol until you puked on a regular basis, if you smoked pot or did ecstasy on the weekends, if you gossiped about people, if you looked at pornography, if you were a chronic liar, if you cheated regularly on your spouse, if you watched movies filled with sex and violence or played videogames where the goal is to kill as many people as you can,  if you were living with someone you’re not married to, if you did your job half-heartedly and stole from the company, if you flipped the bird at people regularly on the highway, if you cursed constantly…if these things were a routine part of your life BEFORE you claimed to be a Christ follower and now it’s years later and you’re STILL doing these things AFTER you say you accepted God’s salvation, then “A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.”

If you can look at your life today and look at your life BC (before Christ) and essentially see the same person, then why are you claiming to be a Christian? If you go to church on Sundays, don’t cuss, are faithful to your spouse, limit your viewing of pornography, mow the widow’s lawn next door, pay the bills on time, have money left over for a vacation, tithe sometimes 5% and even throw a $20 in the offering plate once in a while, and allow your mother-in-law to stay for 2 whole weeks in the summer…and you’ve lived like this for as long as you can remember,“A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.”  It's not the stuff, it's the relationship. It's not the surface, it's what's inside. It's not the giving, it's the living. It's not me, it's all Jesus.

It’s not about being “a good” person or a person that’s given up the bottle, or pornography or the affair. It’s about loving Jesus so much that you have to tell people about Him! It’s about doing whatever, I mean WHATEVER it is that He asks you to do. It means devouring His word because you have got to learn more, it’s about believing what you read in His word and asking Him to work through you like He did through His disciples in the New Testament. It means thinking, “This has GOT to be God, cause this is the most uncomfortable, crazy thing to do...and I would never think of this on my own, so I KNOW it’s Him.” I bought a ring the other day that says, "LIVE THE WORD." I wear it every day as a reminder it's not about me, it's all about Jesus!  It's a reminder that as I continue in my relationship with Jesus...I will continue to change and grow...the goal is for people to see Jesus, not deni.

Remember, Beth Moore’s “faith story” about being in the airport and being nudged to comb the long, straggly hair of an old man in a wheelchair?  Remember the man was hard of hearing and she’s overwhelmed and trying to convince God not to make her do this, and trying to be discreet but he can’t hear her so she yells, “CAN I COMB YOUR HAIR?” Then the God moment happened, the old man told her that he had open heart surgery and his wife was ill and he hasn’t seen her in months. He was thinking what a mess he must look like as he is about to see his bride after all this time. Beth says, “I learned something about God that day. He knows if you’re exhausted or hungry, you’re serving in the wrong place or it’s time to move on but you’re too responsible to budge, He knows if you’re hurting or feel rejected. He knows if you’re sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual.  Tell Him your need! I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like this I had missed along the way…all because I didn’t want people to think I’m strange. God didn’t send me to that old man. He sent the old man to me.” (From an Internet post by Beth Moore)

I didn’t send out the long letter to ask for funds...but to ask you to ask God to show you how you can be more like HIm and do more for Him. My prayer is that folks will be convicted and not walk away like the rich young ruler when God calls us into action. My prayer is that folks will be convicted and do like Zacchaeus and open the door wide to Jesus and let Him in every area of our lives; no matter how crazy or scary or weird His calling may be.

There is a middle aged couple who are applying for disability, they have no income, no vehicle, no money and they need a place to live…

There are special needs kids who will most likely go into the foster care system because their only caregiver can't take care of them anymore…

There are women who struggle with mental illness or uncontrolled diabetes or other health issues, estranged from their families and cannot live alone anymore...

There are senior adults living in nursing homes without a family and are wasting away because they have a story to tell and there is no one there to listen…

There are teenagers who have no male role models and their Moms are working all the time or doing drugs or absent from their lives and these kids are wasting away in the projects…

There are young adults who have been sexually, physically and emotionally abused and desperately need mentors to help them heal and become self-sufficient…

There are single Moms who work two jobs to feed their numerous children but they continue to make bad choices in parenting and the men they date…

There are Dads who are disabled and can't work anymore and can't pay their bills....

There are homeless men and women who sleep on sidewalks and in abandoned buildings who are very sick and dying and need a place to die…

There are folks looking for work but can’t get to the interviews by relying on the city bus…

There are families with grandparents, siblings, grandchildren and significant others who live together and only one or two people work for a variety of reasons…they can’t pay their bills, their rent and they don’t have enough to eat…

This is just a drop in the bucket of the many people I see regularly who need Jesus and support from Christ followers willing to jump off of the pews and dive into the gutter…

There is someone in your neighborhood, in your office, on your team, in your child’s school, or in your church who is suffering and sinking and screaming for help and you know it and God is tugging at your heart but you are fighting Him, “I won’t know what to say,” “What if they take advantage of me,” “I don’t want to make the offer to help because what if helping them takes a long time,” “But, what if I have to give up my favorite TV shows, or cut back on my shopping, or go without something that I want, or be inconvenienced, or feel weird,” "What if it changes the way I like to live..." 

If we’re bargaining with Jesus about being His hands and feet only, “when we have the time,” then we don’t believe that the Gospel “costs” something…and we don’t believe it’s worth very much and we are denying that He is worth any effort, so why are we claiming to know Him? Are we living the way we’ve always lived? Where is the New Creation? Because if this is how we've always felt and this is how we've always lived...then we don’t know Him at all.

I can tell you that God has never called me to do something – no matter how far out of my comfort zone it is – that He hasn't given me every single thing I need to do His will. We sometimes find it very easy to tell God that we love Him…but do we trust Him? Veronica trusted Him with the lives of her family…

what will you trust Him with?

“A relationship with God that doesn’t change your life, isn’t really a relationship with God.” - Facebook

In His service,

deni A. fholer

Isaiah 58, In His Service, Inc.
PO Box 521063
Tulsa OK 74152
918-260-1933
I58ihs@gmail.com
www.i58ihs.blogspot.com
501©3 nonprofit ministry

We HAVE to do more. We HAVE to do better.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways,

 and sinners will turn back to you.” Psalms 51: 10-13