Crowns & Condoms
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
This blog has a bit of adventure to it. I was actually kind of excited to post it. So here ’tis.
In Panama City Beach, FL this week for a camp. Jealous? Don’t be. It’s lonely. I don’t have family with me. And of course I’m with complete strangers–a few hundred of them. Mingling and meeting them but in doing so is like trying to get a splinter out of my foot. It’s frustrating, hard, and painful to do. Much easier to just hole up in the room until time to take the stage. But alas… Jesus wouldn’t do that. So I try not to (though I’m not Jesus and I’m not beyond holing myself up in the room a bit). But I love students, and I love Jesus, and I want to see students love Jesus.
Oh, you’ll like this one….
Upon arriving I was asked to judge a contest of teams and their cheers on the beach. One team stuck a paper crown on my head. I forgot about it being there. Then another team cheered. Following the cheer a guy took off running at me with fire in his eyes. He ripped off his shirt. Lunged at me! I was frozen. In shock and unbelief. All I thought was, “this kid is about to take me out. And if I take him out, I’ll go to jail.” The dude jumped up and slapped me in the head! I kid you not. Again, I had forgotten about the “crown.” He slapped the crown along with my head. Actually, he slapped my head along with crown. I gave them a “0″ for their cheer. Thought ugly and angry thoughts about the young man… then repented. Then I simply reflected on the moment. and concluded with two thoughts. #1–”This is not a good sign in which to begin a week of camp.” #2– “Looks like I’m going to preach angry this week.”
Here’s another good one….
Speaking at main sessions. Also doing a morning seminar on purity of dialogue and dating out of Eph 4 & 5. I mainly deal with sexual purity though in the seminar. After this morning’s seminar. A young guy walked up to me and said, “hey dude, I gotta give you something.” Then he proceeded to hand me two condoms (um, in their packs). He looked me in the eye with conviction and repentance. I understood. And there wasn’t much said between us. (Let me add that I don’t know how long he had had those things, but God showed Him mercy– Know what I’m saying?).
I put the crumbled packs of condoms in my pocket and, of course, I forgot about them. Until…
A while later I reached into my pocket to get my room key (or gum, or something). And ended up pulling one of the condoms out. It fell to the floor in slow motion. All my heart screamed, “JEEESSSSUS, NOOOOOOOO!” I don’t think anyone saw it. Please pray that no-one saw it.
I gave a gospel message tonight. Had about 6 young men give their lives to Jesus. I was excited that they were all young men. And one of those young men who gave his life to Jesus was the young man that gave me the condoms.
