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| Panama City Beach sunset picture that I snapped while down there. |
This past spring break was the craziest spring break I have ever had. I spent a week in Panama City Beach, recognized by many as "the party capital of the US." When people asked me what I was doing for spring break, I told them that I was going to PCB, and the reaction I got was typically "Whoaaaa that's sick! I'm jealous! Have fun! You're gonna have a wild time." I thanked them, and explained that my adventure to PCB might be wild in a different way from most people that go down there's. That's right, I wasn't going to be smoking weed, getting drunk, or hooking up with girls in Panama City Beach. I went down there on a missions trip.
A lot of people would think that it's ridiculous for a Christian group to go down to one of the biggest party locations to do mission work. A lot of Christians might not go there. A lot of Christians might see it as a land of temptation, or a place of sin. But not this Christian.
You see, three years ago my life was radically changed by the gospel. I was somebody that was depressed before God reached in to my life and took away all the pain and gave my life a purpose. For the first 16 years of my life, I was living my life just like any other human being on this earth. But not long before I turned 17, I had an interaction with the Holy Spirit that forever changed my life. It made my life so incredibly better.
And I know that a lot of other people right now are in the state I was in before I found Jesus, a state of looking for the answers to life's questions, or finding something that gives them rest. So ever since my life changed, I've wanted to share this incredible joy with everyone. I want everyone else to feel the kind of peace that God has given me, and I want to help them discover their faith.
I looked at Panama City Beach as an opportunity. People have different reactions to alcohol, but most people seem to be more loose and outgoing once they have a few drinks in them. So in a town where drinking on the beach is a very prominent thing, I saw this is a great chance to have spiritual conversations with people, even if they were people I had never met before.
My time in PCB was without a doubt amazing. I had many new experiences, and was able to present the gospel to dozens of people. However, I did not expect that the most meaningful conversation I would have on the trip wasn't actually in PCB. I had been praying and I felt like God wanted me to find a way to get to Tampa Bay for the weekend, which meant leaving PCB a day early, to see my family. I didn't know why, but I just felt like it was what God wanted me to do. So instead of coming back on the Saturday with everybody else that went on the trip, I opted to take a 9-hour Greyhound bus to Tampa.
I arrived at the bus station early in the morning. I don't remember much about that morning aside from meeting some girls from University of Illinois that were friends with a guy I knew from high school, and having the craziest encounter I have ever had with a stranger. And when I say craziest, I mean it. This was something straight out of a movie or something.
I'm sitting in my seat in the bus station waiting for the bus to get ready to go, listening to music on my phone. There was a white, old biker-looking guy sitting across the room who had been making obnoxious comments. But never in my life had I seen something as obnoxious or hateful and disgusting as what I was about to see. I looked up for a second, and I see a happy, middle-aged black man walk in to the room. I watch him walk in, and hear the old white guy call him "the N word", followed by "take your n***** ass home." The black man responded in a frustrated way and it was clear that he was trying to have patience and be peaceful. In the middle of his response, something came over me. I felt myself moving my hands, picking up my luggage that was sitting in the seat to the right of me, and dropping it on the floor. My hands then proceeded to wave over to this stranger, and wave him to come over and sit by me. This wasn't something I planned on doing. It just happened. Perhaps it was a natural reaction, or the Holy Spirit pushing me to go outside of my comfort zone and care for one of God's people.
So this guy comes over and sits next to me. I take out my headphones, and we start talking; I find out his name is Darren. Meanwhile, the biker leaves, and everyone cheers. Darren starts talking to me about basketball, and I start pleading my case for why Larry Bird is the greatest small forward of all-time and LeBron is second. Darren agrees with me, and we start to talk about other 70's and 80's basketball. Darren is impressed with my knowledge of the game, and asks how I know so much about a time that I wasn't even alive for. I then pull out Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball, a 700 page book that I've been working on finishing for forever. He's then fascinated by the book, and wants to see Simmons' list of his top 12 players. Then, in the middle of our conversation, we are interrupted as everybody needs to get on the bus. Thinking this was the last I saw of him, I was a little disappointed and I popped my headphones back in to continue my Relient K playlist or whatever I was listening to at the time.
As I walk in, I see Darren sitting at the back of the bus, with a big smile on his face, waving over to me. He had saved a spot for me, and was acting like we were old buddies. We start talking again, looking over the book, and end up talking sports for the next hour or two. Then all of the sudden, the conversation gets deep. We start talking about life, and he starts laying the stereotypical "middle-aged black person" wisdom on me that we see so often in TV shows and movies. Here's a quote I hear from Darren that I will never forget: "God created Eve from Adam's rib. If you ever find your rib, you marry her, and you cherish her forever. Because I let my rib get away, and I never that to happen to a good, young man like you." After he brings up this point about God's creation, I decide to ask if him if I can tell him my story with God. He says he'd love to hear it, so I tell it to him. I tell him the exact story I tell in the video featured earlier in this blog.
The next thing I hear from Darren is this: "Jack, this is amazing. Because I was released from prison this morning. I was in on a cocaine possession. But when I was behind bars, I had my life changed. A lot of prison ministries came and I heard something true for the first time in my life." He then pulls out his bag of stuff he had from prison and shows me the cards he was given. He loves the verse 2 Corinthians 3:17 ("Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."), a wonderful verse about freedom. He had been looking for freedom for quite a while, and even while he was in prison, he felt free. God had freed him from his troubles, anxieties, and sin. He tells me how I'm the first person that he's interacted with outside of prison, aside from the bigot that called him the N word. He tells me that this is a sign from God, and it's reassurance to him that God wants him to change his life and start living his life for God. He tells me how he's so excited to find a church and get connected and that this time he knows his life is going to be different. We had some more cool conversation, and before we knew it we had reached our stop and it was time for us to go our separate ways.
It's crazy that this all happened. This isn't a made-up story. This is one of the craziest life experiences I have ever had, and something I wouldn't trade for anything. God wanted me to be on that Greyhound bus. He wanted me to meet Darren. God used my random sports knowledge as a way to connect with someone from a complete opposite walk of life as me. He wanted me to have this experience. He wanted me to be bold in my faith, and never back down from sharing it. I also gained some wisdom from talking to Darren, and listening to the things he said. I think the other things I learned and experienced are pretty self-explanatory. All I can say is that it was incredible.
We may never know the rest of the story and what happened to Darren in his post-prison life. But we do know that he is now a child of God. And we know that he has hope. If you're reading this, I don't know what you believe. Some people might not have been able to make it through to the end of this blog because of all the Jesus talk. But I think we all like a good redemption story. We don't want to see people fall back in to the same problems they had before. No, we want to see their lives change for the better. Well, Darren has been redeemed. I can't wait to see him in Heaven and hear about how his life changed, and what God did with his life in his remaining years on Earth.
You see, three years ago my life was radically changed by the gospel. I was somebody that was depressed before God reached in to my life and took away all the pain and gave my life a purpose. For the first 16 years of my life, I was living my life just like any other human being on this earth. But not long before I turned 17, I had an interaction with the Holy Spirit that forever changed my life. It made my life so incredibly better.
And I know that a lot of other people right now are in the state I was in before I found Jesus, a state of looking for the answers to life's questions, or finding something that gives them rest. So ever since my life changed, I've wanted to share this incredible joy with everyone. I want everyone else to feel the kind of peace that God has given me, and I want to help them discover their faith.
I looked at Panama City Beach as an opportunity. People have different reactions to alcohol, but most people seem to be more loose and outgoing once they have a few drinks in them. So in a town where drinking on the beach is a very prominent thing, I saw this is a great chance to have spiritual conversations with people, even if they were people I had never met before.
My time in PCB was without a doubt amazing. I had many new experiences, and was able to present the gospel to dozens of people. However, I did not expect that the most meaningful conversation I would have on the trip wasn't actually in PCB. I had been praying and I felt like God wanted me to find a way to get to Tampa Bay for the weekend, which meant leaving PCB a day early, to see my family. I didn't know why, but I just felt like it was what God wanted me to do. So instead of coming back on the Saturday with everybody else that went on the trip, I opted to take a 9-hour Greyhound bus to Tampa.
I arrived at the bus station early in the morning. I don't remember much about that morning aside from meeting some girls from University of Illinois that were friends with a guy I knew from high school, and having the craziest encounter I have ever had with a stranger. And when I say craziest, I mean it. This was something straight out of a movie or something.
I'm sitting in my seat in the bus station waiting for the bus to get ready to go, listening to music on my phone. There was a white, old biker-looking guy sitting across the room who had been making obnoxious comments. But never in my life had I seen something as obnoxious or hateful and disgusting as what I was about to see. I looked up for a second, and I see a happy, middle-aged black man walk in to the room. I watch him walk in, and hear the old white guy call him "the N word", followed by "take your n***** ass home." The black man responded in a frustrated way and it was clear that he was trying to have patience and be peaceful. In the middle of his response, something came over me. I felt myself moving my hands, picking up my luggage that was sitting in the seat to the right of me, and dropping it on the floor. My hands then proceeded to wave over to this stranger, and wave him to come over and sit by me. This wasn't something I planned on doing. It just happened. Perhaps it was a natural reaction, or the Holy Spirit pushing me to go outside of my comfort zone and care for one of God's people.
So this guy comes over and sits next to me. I take out my headphones, and we start talking; I find out his name is Darren. Meanwhile, the biker leaves, and everyone cheers. Darren starts talking to me about basketball, and I start pleading my case for why Larry Bird is the greatest small forward of all-time and LeBron is second. Darren agrees with me, and we start to talk about other 70's and 80's basketball. Darren is impressed with my knowledge of the game, and asks how I know so much about a time that I wasn't even alive for. I then pull out Bill Simmons' The Book of Basketball, a 700 page book that I've been working on finishing for forever. He's then fascinated by the book, and wants to see Simmons' list of his top 12 players. Then, in the middle of our conversation, we are interrupted as everybody needs to get on the bus. Thinking this was the last I saw of him, I was a little disappointed and I popped my headphones back in to continue my Relient K playlist or whatever I was listening to at the time.
As I walk in, I see Darren sitting at the back of the bus, with a big smile on his face, waving over to me. He had saved a spot for me, and was acting like we were old buddies. We start talking again, looking over the book, and end up talking sports for the next hour or two. Then all of the sudden, the conversation gets deep. We start talking about life, and he starts laying the stereotypical "middle-aged black person" wisdom on me that we see so often in TV shows and movies. Here's a quote I hear from Darren that I will never forget: "God created Eve from Adam's rib. If you ever find your rib, you marry her, and you cherish her forever. Because I let my rib get away, and I never that to happen to a good, young man like you." After he brings up this point about God's creation, I decide to ask if him if I can tell him my story with God. He says he'd love to hear it, so I tell it to him. I tell him the exact story I tell in the video featured earlier in this blog.
The next thing I hear from Darren is this: "Jack, this is amazing. Because I was released from prison this morning. I was in on a cocaine possession. But when I was behind bars, I had my life changed. A lot of prison ministries came and I heard something true for the first time in my life." He then pulls out his bag of stuff he had from prison and shows me the cards he was given. He loves the verse 2 Corinthians 3:17 ("Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."), a wonderful verse about freedom. He had been looking for freedom for quite a while, and even while he was in prison, he felt free. God had freed him from his troubles, anxieties, and sin. He tells me how I'm the first person that he's interacted with outside of prison, aside from the bigot that called him the N word. He tells me that this is a sign from God, and it's reassurance to him that God wants him to change his life and start living his life for God. He tells me how he's so excited to find a church and get connected and that this time he knows his life is going to be different. We had some more cool conversation, and before we knew it we had reached our stop and it was time for us to go our separate ways.
It's crazy that this all happened. This isn't a made-up story. This is one of the craziest life experiences I have ever had, and something I wouldn't trade for anything. God wanted me to be on that Greyhound bus. He wanted me to meet Darren. God used my random sports knowledge as a way to connect with someone from a complete opposite walk of life as me. He wanted me to have this experience. He wanted me to be bold in my faith, and never back down from sharing it. I also gained some wisdom from talking to Darren, and listening to the things he said. I think the other things I learned and experienced are pretty self-explanatory. All I can say is that it was incredible.
We may never know the rest of the story and what happened to Darren in his post-prison life. But we do know that he is now a child of God. And we know that he has hope. If you're reading this, I don't know what you believe. Some people might not have been able to make it through to the end of this blog because of all the Jesus talk. But I think we all like a good redemption story. We don't want to see people fall back in to the same problems they had before. No, we want to see their lives change for the better. Well, Darren has been redeemed. I can't wait to see him in Heaven and hear about how his life changed, and what God did with his life in his remaining years on Earth.
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