With a spare half hour in my day I decided to take my family
to a small park in the projects. Because our team doesn’t live or do ministry
there, it was a place I’d never been. Not being one who always pays the best
attention to my surroundings, I found myself in my current setting very aware
of who was where and what they were doing. One man in particular caught my eye.
In the neighborhood we were in he didn’t really stand out, but for some reason
he caught my eye.
The playground we were at was right next to an old run down
building that once housed community clubs. Across the street was a small store
where one could buy pretty much anything you may need, and I mean anything. The
man who caught my eye was walking out of that store when he approached me. He
began his introduction by asking who we were and what we were doing, and he did
this with a smile. After telling him, very briefly, that we were there as
missionaries leading teens in the area, he asked if he could talk to me
honestly. I agreed.
The beginning of his story didn’t shock me. He told me that
he smoked pot, and lived in the projects. He went on to tell me that last night
while trying to buy drugs, his dealer threatened to hurt him and stole $15.00.
Coming from the projects had made him hard, he told me. He was raised in an
area where you had to fight to keep what was yours and this person took from
him what was his, and he was going to make it right.
After having his money stolen last night, the man said that
he got in his car heading out to kill his dealer but on the way got into a car
accident. This accident ruined his revenge, but only for that night. He went
home frustrated but still intent on harming this man. He looked me square in
the eye and said, He stole from me so I have to hurt him, and after a brief
pause he continued, but I have been praying and don’t think I should.
Today, by chance, in the middle of an area rarely used any
more for play, God created an opportunity to save a life. Today by being in a
place where God could use his child, a man reached out in desperation to go
against what he has always done. Today, grace prevailed over revenge.
I will never take credit for this conversation. I didn’t
initiate the prayer. The man who sought to avenge the theft of $15.00 with violence
placed his hands in front of me and asked me to pray for him. And we prayed.
