Encouragement

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Paul was taking a risk when he entered Jerusalem. Now as the angry crowd approached shouting to seize him, the apostle's worst fears were coming to pass. Quickly he was swarmed under a sea of flailing arms and fists, and just when he was about to lose consciousness, the mob suddenly dispersed. As he lay on the ground, too beaten to move, he came face to face with the shoes of a squadron of Roman soldiers. Although he was bound in chains, these enforcers of the law were also his rescuers. (Acts 21:27-34)

Maybe it was the memory of this incident that later inspired Paul to write: "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil ... For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does bear not the sword in vain; for he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil." (Rom 13:3a, 4 NKJV) The word "ruler" in the Greek can be anyone in authority, which can include the Roman soldiers who saved Paul from the angry Jews. Like Paul, I too have seen God use law enforcement to deliver my family from danger.

Ever since my wife and I moved into our current house, the drugs and gangs in the surrounding neighborhood were a constant source of concern. Many times the trouble emanated from the house that sits on the plot that abuts against our backyard. Whenever the occupants of this dwelling were not inside conducting some sort of illegal transaction, they were just over the hill on the other side of our house at the basketball court. Our backyard was their shortcut because it was on a straight line between these two popular locations. Never mind the chain link fence that separated our yards. People climbed it over, or simply jumped it.

Some of these individuals were pretty rough looking, so I avoided any direct confrontation with the trespassers. Then we remembered Psalm 91 where it said "He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honor him." (v. 15) As a couple, we committed our concerns to the Lord in prayer.

Not long after we made our first passionate petition to the Lord, I pulled into the alley one day, and at least a dozen vehicles were parked along both sides of it. From my back porch, I could see over fifty men down at the basketball court, and they were not shooting hoops. They were milling around, pulling objects out of their pockets, and slapping them into another's hand -- actions that I thought were characteristic of a drug exchange. A few weeks later, my wife was home alone when she saw a gang with red bandanas attacking a group of people wearing blue bandanas at the bottom of the hill. Many of them were armed with baseball bats. Naturally my wife called 9-1-1, but the police did not arrive until the fracas was over.

After these incidents, we began to have grave concerns about our safety, and moving out of the neighborhood was a serious consideration. Little did we know that God was already working a plan for our deliverance, and the police who fell short this last time were part of it.

Then one Saturday morning at breakfast, my wife asked me if I noticed how quiet the neighborhood had been lately. I had to admit that I not seen anybody down at the basketball court for a couple days. I opened the newspaper, and the headlines announced "Police Break up Major Drug and Theft Ring." I mentioned this to my wife, and she immediately wondered if the eerie silence in the neighborhood and these arrests were somehow related. Whether it was coincidence or not, we praised God several times over the next couple days for the police and the blissful peace they brought us.

The drugs and crime continued in cycles in our neighborhood over the next several years, but finally the problem escalated on a snowy, cold December night. I had just let my dogs out when I espied three people walking in the yard across the chain-link fence in heavy winter coats and their hoods pulled up over their faces. I also noticed the unusual rifle that one of them carried. The weapon had a large rectangular box in front of the trigger and the barrel was a small thin stem that stuck out of the box. As they waved the gun around, I noticed a purple light shining on the snow. It was coming from the sight of the gun. Suddenly I realized that they had an automatic weapon with an ultraviolet scope.

To make matters worst, the openings of all three hoods were now turned in my direction. I had been spotted! As calmly as I could, I called my dogs back into house. When I told my wife what I saw, she immediately wanted to call the police, but I was worried that the three men would surely suspect me of turning them in. So we called a man in our church who was a federal agent. The agent agreed that it was a good idea not to call the local police, but he asked us to keep him informed if we heard anything new about the rifle.

Ten days later, there was a drug bust in a house, just five blocks south of where we lived. The article in the local newspaper specifically mentioned that an assault rifle was confiscated along with a large quantity of money and drugs. The next Sunday at church, I looked up the federal agent and mentioned the weapon had been collected during the raid. He simply smiled and said, "Well, what do you know about that."

Although the assault weapon was now safely out of circulation, God was still not done with our neighborhood. Later that same Sunday, a U-Haul panel truck parked in front of the problem house. Three days later, the house was totally vacated. The next day, we saw a man and a woman in business attire walking around in the same backyard where I had seen the three hooded figures. My wife and I introduced ourselves. We learned they were partners in a real estate project that remodeled homes where drugs were formerly sold. They had just purchased the property from the previous landlord and hoped to resell the house to a quality homeowner.

Many times over the past fourteen years, we wondered "Lord, why did you allow us to live in such a dangerous place?" Now I know God needed us here to intercede for the neighborhood. As the word says, "The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much," (James 5:16b) and through our prayers, God -- in his timing -- improved a home that was a constant source of trouble. Although the solution was years in the making, the experience taught us to trust Him no matter how big the problem or immovable the obstacle. Nor is He limited by the means He uses. He can use real estate investors and most definitely police officers.

When our children were younger, many times they became afraid whenever they saw a person in a blue uniform with a badge. We would tell him not to be frightened, because the police are our friend. At the time we made this profession, we were still troubled on every side by drugs and gangs. Now after seeing how instrumental the men and women in law enforcement were in cleaning up my neighborhood, I can confidently say that they are truly God's ministers for good.

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