Recently, my son and I were mistakenly followed home by two young men apparently playing the “senior assassin” game.
Just minutes before, I noticed being followed. The driver’s quick aggressive turns behind me triggered my intuition and defenses. I watched the rearview mirror closely, but thought maybe it was just a couple of teens out for a joyride. When I arrived home, however, the vehicle pulled up behind me to block me in my spot. The passenger — a tall male with an athletic build — came up to my son’s side of the car and I jumped out ready to fire.
Before I got around the car, he quickly realized his mistake, held up his hands, and let me know what was going on. He thought I was someone he knew the entire time. He showed me the squirt gun they had prepared in their vehicle. That young man is lucky to be alive. His foolish little high school game almost turned deadly.
It’s tempting to get frustrated when unexpected things happen, but there’s nothing new under the sun. We may not have played social media pranks, but facing mortality is a crossroad every child of God can relate to. There was a time in every saint’s life when the temporary fun of worldly foolishness took precedence over eternal wisdom. Then, when confronted with suffering or death, the fleeting innocence of youth faded, and life’s meaning became very real. This awakening, although it feels like doom, is actually a blessing.
Even before the foundation of the world, Jesus knew how blind and careless we would be. He knew how depraved we would be. He knew the mercy and grace we would need. Even knowing of our pride and our tendency to do things He hates, He humbled Himself and took our punishment, so when His infinite light came to interrupt our darkness, we could experience the privilege of facing our own mortality and the potential wages of our sin. When we turned from our rebellion and surrendered in faith to His fullness, the passions of our former ignorance were traded for the eternal riches of Christ, and the foolishness we once reveled in with excitement and pleasure faded into an undesirable false hope.
Nothing in this world can explain such a transformation. It resides forever in the mystery of the Lord’s infinite wisdom. He interceded to save us from the eternal destruction we deserve, to rise us out of our worldly delusion, and to refine us for His glory, so we can live our renewed lives battling the darkness and shedding His light into the wickedness we’d formerly known. We are living proof that His Spirit can straighten the paths of even the most reckless fool’s paradise.
I don’t share often, but the “senior assassin” high schoolers are an example of the kinds of strange scenarios God sets up in my life as an evangelist. Years ago, I used to miss opportunities (due to insecurity or misunderstanding) until God convicted me and showed me His way. He doesn’t make mistakes, but His plan may appear that way in order to foster His divine will.
I still mess up sometimes, and like this situation, it can take me a moment to get my bearings and remember why I’m there, but when we have a Kingdom mindset, remember where we came from, and believe our lives are in God’s hands, nothing holds us back from His purpose. Every place I venture to or circumstance I end up in, no matter how seemingly routine, ordinary or inconvenient, holds opportunity for the Lord to work in someone’s life.
As born-again believers, we should never underestimate our value to God’s Kingdom; we’re carrying a message and testimony that is so very important. It ignites the power of God to save a soul.
Being forced to face the harsh reality of life’s transience and fragility is a great opportunity to share the gospel. And what an honor it is. I hope this significant moment kindled their curiosity about the Creator who came to rescue souls from the path to Sheol, and it leaves them seriously considering the weight of eternity as they work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:1-3
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:1-10
