Enjoying Church

A co-worker asks another employee if he was a Christian. I then asked him if he was a Christian. He said "No way. If I can't see something I'm not going to believe in it."

I fully understand but I've seen too much not to believe. Once, a friend who was going to bible college in Winston-Salem, attended a small church in Hickory. It was his last Sunday there as he had finally graduated and had secured a position in a small church. While in school he also worked so he had an income sufficient to support himself and his family but the church's salary wouldn't be as much as he had been making so things were going to be rough for him for awhile. Our church took up a special offering for him. It wasn't much, just eighty dollars, and it was all in one dollar bills.

We left the church about the same time with him pulling out first. It was a country Baptist and when I say country, I mean it was a long way from the church until one saw a house or any human life form. I was shocked after we had gone about a mile or so. Bill stopped at a stop sign and just as I pulled to a halt behind him I saw money floating down, covering the top of bills car and the roadway.

"Poor bill: i thought "he's lost his money," I exclaimed to my wife. I jumped out of my car and started grabbing money and collected over fifty dollars. I handed the money to Bill and he said :kept it, you found it."

"No, I can't keep the money the church gave to you."

"But this isn't the money from the church. My wife has that in her purse."

"Where did this come from then?" I asked, as I looked at the huge stack of bills Bill had picked up. His wife had collected almost as much as Bill did.

Or how about the time I was stationed in Puerto Rico and a friend had invited me to go with him and another guy to a bible study in San Juan. It was a difficult trip from the little base I was stationed out and required us to walk in some lonely, dark, and isolated places. My friend didn't make it that night so I went with this other guy, a man a few years younger than I was, a mere teenager. On the return trip we were surrounded by six men bearing knives and threading to use them on us if we didn't give them all our worldly goods.

The teenager I was with stepped forward and proceeded to drop kick and karate chop the six men into changing their evening plans. Turned out he was the former leader of Chicago's biggest street gang and had been converted to Christianity by David Wilkerson of "Sword and the Switchblade" fame. Just a coincidence?

I once owed by Mom several thousand dollars and to repay her I deeded her a set of burial crypts worth just about what I owed her or a little more. She tried selling them for years and although they were the only two crypts available there were no takers. a decade went by and there seemed little hope that Mom would ever sell them to get her money back. She had all but given up and had decided to include them in her will as a gift to me in lieu of my share of of an insurance policy. But then,
just as she was about to file the will her pastor was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given only a few weeks to live.

Even though she sold the crypts below their fair market value, she doubled her money and the preacher got a bargin. Just a luck break?

Believe what you want. I do.