Lord God, I thank you for your love, grace and mercy.
“yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we live, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we live.” (1 Corinthians 8:6)
I have been blessed to serve on many Kairos weekends of going into prisons for four days like the one I served on last week. During this time we spend in the prison it includes sharing meals, our life stories, listening to those of the inmates, sharing our love for them and sharing the love of Jesus. All the men or women in the prison are suffering the consequences of bad decisions they made in their life.
In the sharing with the inmates, one theme is always the most prevalent in the inmates stories; love, or the lack of love. Almost all of the men or women, with hardened hearts who have built up walls of strength around them as required to survive in prison, end up with tears running down their face said they had never experienced love like this shown to them during the weekend before in their life. Or they said they had forgotten for a long time ago what real love felt like. They also said they wish they had a person show them this kind of love when they were growing up, a mentor, someone to look up to who showed them love and taught them how to model love and Christian values. They probably would not be in prison now if they did.
Unfortunately, there are many children, young men and women, single mom’s, children of single parents, single men in our communities that have not experienced love or have a mentor in their life. You could be that person that “if only someone had shown me love and taught me how to love” that changes the direction of a person’s life. We may not all be called to write letters like Paul, launch a church planting network or lead a church congregations, however we are all called and capable to open our hearts, our homes, and invest margins of time to love and mentor one or two men or women who need role models. The only way we will stop having to spend weekends going into prisons to reach men in women imprisoned there and share with them love and the Gospel of grace in Jesus Christ, is to start spending time on weekends to reach men or women in our community and make time to embrace them, mentor them, and share the Gospel with them, and change the direction of their lives.
My family, I pray for the Holy Spirit to lead you to the one or more persons you can simply love, share life, mentor and intentionally invest time in their life, in Jesus name. Please pray the same for me. God bless you my friends!
I would love for you to share your reflections and prayers with us on this blog in the comment box below.
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One of my passions is helping churches or small groups understand and embrace their call to be disciples of Jesus in their community.. I offer and lead discipleship trainings in person and on-line. If you are interested I would love to talk to you bout it. Email me at garyl@onedirection.community.