Christian Living

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We Are Sometimes Blind And Need To See
© 2006
by

Stephen A. Peterson


Tim was the young town vagrant. A more unsightly person there never was. No matter the weather, Tim would use his survival skills to take advantage of conditions available to him. Concrete park benches under blackjack oak trees were excellent locations to sleep the night away. Whenever local churches sponsored dinners, picnics or holiday meals, Tim would be there looking for a free meal or handout. The church Tim visited would always give him something to eat. A few would give him food and money hoping but assuming he not use the money to purchase alcohol or drugs.

During the spring of 2002, a Christian youth group visited Shawnee to entertain and evangelize. Every visitor, young and old, was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic and joyous singing of old and new Christian oriented music. As the sun began to sink in the Western Oklahoma sky, Tim came walking in perhaps to see what all the excitement was all about or maybe to take advantage of the tables of free food under the protection of the park’s oak trees.

“Welcome, brother!” shouted one of teenage singers. “God loves you!” Then the young bearded singer rushed up to Tim and embraced him. Then looking into his eyes he asked, “Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ?” Tim shooked his head—no. “Well, brother, I’m here to tell you that He loves you! He doesn’t care who you are, where you’ve been or what you’ve done. He’ll accept you as you are! Come brother, have some of the Lord’s food! Know brother that this is the day that the Lord had made for you and me! Let us rejoice in it and be glad because He loved you first and still loves you even now! You are one of His own!”


That evening, the long haired teenage band member from a distant state got Tim to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. No one in any of the local churches who had known Tim all of his 20 years of life had ever bothered themselves about his soul.

Tim never held any ill will against any church or person in Shawnee for not inviting him to consider his eternal life and where he would spend that eternity. Within fourteen months, Tim help to manage the Salvation Army Thrift Store, helped with classes to tell young people about God and teens about the evils of alcohol and drug abuse, and greeting people at the church door as they came for Sunday services. Cleaned up and free of substance abuse, with his face shaven, his brown hair neatly cut and tied into a ponytail in the back of his head, he looked for all the world like a 21st century Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune 500 company though only 22 years old.

It had taken a stranger to look beneath the alcohol and drugs to see Tim as he really is—a child of God, like the rest of us!!!

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