This is the final post in which I have been sharing some true experiences that I documented as a chaplain in the jails of Orange County, California. I referred to these encounters as "divine appointments" which I defined as specific acts of grace in which God steps into our lives, manipulating circumstances and events to reveal something about his character in a personal way.
Today, we'll see where God actually interweaved two "independent" stories together in order to reveal his will for a young man, and to allow him to accept and embrace an amazing spiritual gift.
Meet Nati.
The Gift
One Sunday I was scheduled for a Bible study in one of the men's facilities. At the appointed time, two inmates showed up for the study. Soon after we got started, one of them was called out by the deputies, which left just me and a young man named Nati.
If you've been reading these posts, you know that whenever God arranged for me to meet with a single inmate, I knew he had something special in store--a divine appointment. To no surprise, after the other inmate left, Nati asked if I would have time at the end of the study to talk about something that was troubling him.
At the end of the hour, Nati posed this question, “What do you think about spiritual gifts?” I gave him a brief overview of what I believe the Bible teaches about the work of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of grace.
He looked a bit contemplative, then he offered: “When I pray for people who are in physical pain, I feel pain. I feel their pain” He gave me an example of an uncle who had hurt his back and was unable to work. Nati told me that as he prayed for this uncle, his own back began to hurt. He shared a few other instances of this phenomenon which included feeling the emotions of those who were in some sort of distress. For example, if they were mourning, he would feel sadness--their sadness--as if their trial were happening to him.
"Am I crazy?" he asked.
Hold that thought . . .
Some Background
About a week earlier, my wife and I were having dinner with another couple, some good friends of ours. At some point during our evening, the wife, Maria, mentioned that she had a book she wanted me to read. To say that she wanted me to read the book is somewhat of an understatement. She was quite insistent that I read the book.
This couple had recently been through some very challenging times, yet through the storms God had put on Maria's heart to seek out people who were struggling and to pray for them. Just as the apostle Paul described how he was compelled by the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel (1 Cor 9:16). she felt a similar divine calling to pray for others.
She handed me a book called Intercessor – the Story of a Life Lived for God. It is a biography about a man named Rees Howells.
Rees Howells was a man called by God... that is, summoned by God through the Holy Spirit to intercede for people on God’s behalf. God wanted this man to step into their troubled lives, reflect His love for them, and relieve their suffering with his own sacrifice. Whether the issue was financial, or physical, or medical, or emotional, Rees Howells was to take their burdens upon himself. He was to be the solution to their problems. It was a ministry of radical intercession.
This powerful gift is one that is not specifically mentioned in any of the lists of spiritual gifts in Scripture, yet undeniably of God. One amazing feature of the gift of intercession is the fact that God would often reveal the distress of others to these gifted servants through divine revelation, that is, before the issue manifested itself, or without anyone mentioning it.
Perhaps the closest thing we might typically encounter to this incredible gift is how God often gives parents--especially mothers--a special connection with their children. There are things we might just chalk up to “a mother’s intuition,” but I believe there is a God-given interlinking of parent to child, a manifestation of love, that often allows the parent to feel what the child is feeling, or to sense distress or danger.
Back to Nati
Had my wife and I not had dinner with our friends, and had Maria not insisted that I read the book about Rees Howells just before my encounter with Nati, I probably would not have been able to fully understand what Nati was experiencing. Yet, because of this series of divine appointments, I was able to share with him my belief that he had been given the wonderful, yet challenging gift of intercession, and the special privilege of being used by God in this way.
As I stated earlier, these gifted servants often have the ability to sense the distress of others without any prior mention. As we were wrapping up our time together, out of the blue, Nati looked at me and said somewhat quizzically, “You have a wife and one son?” I nodded my head, a little unsure of where this was going. We had not discussed anything about my family or my personal situation. His next question astounded me. He said, “When did your son stop loving you?”
Although I had never been in this particular mod before, one thing I often shared with the inmates was that we show love for our earthly fathers in the same way God requires us to show love for our heavenly Father – with obedience and respect (1 John 5:3).
I explained to Nati that my son, who was about half way through a five-year prison sentence, got into drugs when he was fourteen. He became hostile, disrespectful and defiant. In short, he became unloving toward me and my wife. I believe that Nati, with his God-given gift, could feel my distress. He could sense my pain.
There was a bit of a pause, then Nati stated with confidence, “He loves you now.”
Amazingly, that was about the time when, because of a series of events my son experienced in prison, my wife and I sensed that something had changed – that God had done a work in his heart. So when Nati said, “He loves you now,” it was as if God was confirming to me that He had achieved a victory in my son’s life.
Conclusion
After our meeting that day, I sent Nati the book, Intercessor, and was able to meet with him one final time. He seemed to be at peace with his gift, ready to embrace the unique privilege with which God had entrusted him and to allow God to use him in whatever way He willed.
Afterword
As I think back on these divine appointments, I’ve often wished that we could do "contact tracing" to see how God has used those meetings to expand his kingdom. While I can’t tell you what became of the three young men in these recent posts, this I can say with assurance,
"... as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11 ESV)
Next Post: Fractured Parables. Here's a link:
Comments