Listening in the Moment

Dexter the Homeless man, NC.

A few months ago I was in Raleigh, North Carolina at a conference. On Friday night my good friend, Luke Jeffery, and I were meeting some friends for dinner. As we were walking to the restaurant, we ran into a homeless man named Dexter who asked us if we could help him out by giving him some money for a bus ticket. Honestly, everything in me did not want to give him the $10 in my wallet, but I felt the Lord telling me to so I did.

In that moment I got a word from the Lord over this man's life and it was that he was involved with gangs years ago. I asked him if this were true and sure enough he admitted that a huge part of his life, and a lot of the mess he is in today, resulted from the fact that he used to be in a gang and had invested all of his life to the streets. After talking with him a little more, Dexter openly confessed to us several addictions with which he struggled and that despite once being a Christian he had completely fallen away from the Lord. Luke and I asked Dexter if we could pray over him and we asked the Holy Spirit to completely free him of his addictions. I thought this was the end of the story...

When we ended the prayer Dexter kept talking to us so I asked God what more we were called to do for him. It became so clear all of the sudden that Dexter's soul was begging us to boldly declare to him that God wanted him back and that he needed to recommit his life to Jesus. I asked Dexter what he was waiting for and told him that it was so clear he not only wanted, but desperately needed to ask Jesus to come back into his life. Dexter’s response to us was something that completely shook me up... he told us that he didn’t feel worthy to be in a relationship with Jesus. WHAT A LIE THE ENEMY HAS FED MY FRIEND. I reassured him how false that was and then told him that the reality of the Gospel is that when Jesus went to the cross He took ALL the sin in the world with Him and that He desires to take those burdens from us still today. I told Dexter that even in the darkest, most broken place of his life God still so badly wants to be in a relationship with him and that no sin is too dark for the power of Christ to wash it clean.

After hearing all of this, I am ecstatic to tell you that Dexter then prayed to the LIVING God for forgiveness and received Jesus as his Savior. Witnessing this man feel the presence of God was indescribable. He was FULL of joy and claimed right then and there that he knew God was real. Right there on the streets of North Carolina this man surrendered his life to the Lord and it was one of the most beautiful prayers I've ever heard in my life. Nothing fancy, nothing poetic, just a broken man asking God to give him another chance. I felt funny not wanting to give this man $10 because the reality is that his soul is priceless. If you're reading this and don't know Jesus, know that you too are NOT too far or too sinful to receive Him as your savior.