Yesterday I Wept

The Saturdays of my first ten years in Conroe were spent in the harvest…

God blessed and I have not done much of that the last seven…

Pastoral duty called and I did not have time for such things…

Oh, we would have campaigns and blitz and I would lead the charge…

I have bought thousands of info tapes and given them away...

I have printed hundreds of thousands of pieces of literature...

Websites, yellow page ads, news paper ads, etc

Bicycles, mp3 players, backpacks, candy and who knows what else have been given away by this ministry...

In a container on our parking lot is nearly 10,000 bottles of water we are giving away....

I am certain without research, but I have signed checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars we have sent out for the souls....

But yesterday I wept…

For Tracie and I spent the afternoon in the harvest…

And I felt for the first time in years the actual weight of burden for people I did not know…

Oh, preacher man I know we all have burdens for our cities, communities and churches…

But I felt the emotion of the impossibility of the depravity of those addicted and helpless….

I felt the helplessness of the children of those same addicts…

My years in jail ministry taught me to be hard and the ones there had done the crime so they had to serve the time…

But little children locked behind flimsy doors protected by fearful parents or guardians who are afraid for the kids to sit on the front porch…

And then there were the street smart ones…

The urchins for lack of a better word…

I wept over a group of twelve and thirteen year old little girls who are already living the promiscuous life their mommas taught them…

I wept as I watched the police cruiser stop and the officers begin beating on a door…

I wept over Tracie’s little friend Destiny who was so sad this week…

We took her to lunch and she was so sad and refused to talk….

Yeah…

Kent and Tracie took the little urchin named Destiny to lunch…

The successful pastor and his trophy wife were sitting at a picnic table with a little girl who had not eaten in a day or so…

Or had a bath…

And I wept…

My heart literally rose in my throat as I considered the hopeless future these young ones have …

Without a savior…

I wept…

Is my current emotion somewhat similar to what Jesus felt that day he looked over Jerusalem?

My emotion was for a neighborhood….

His, a world…

Yesterday I wept…

Oh, I always cry at the Home Missions service at General Conference…

I am ashamed that it has been years since I wept for souls…

This morning, is was Prime Time Pastor Hour…

Music was good…

Church nicely full…

Several visiting families…

All teams hitting on all cylinders….

Pastor was feeling and looking good…

But then…

Tracie comes through the front door with a little string of urchins who only have one hope…

And I wept….

Preachers….

We have our fine suits…

Fine houses…

Fine automobiles…

Fine churches…

Magazine offices…

Designer services…

Hobbies, friends and portfolios

All so nice…

We have all wept for the success of our ministries…

We have wept for the success of our careers…

How long since we truly wept over those that we really are their only hope…

Yesterday I wept…

Today it continues…

I hope it never stops…