Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness
Page 59
Chapter 40
The Sinner’s Prayer
It happened sooner than Pastor Rick had expected. The next week, also a Monday, he managed to fit another trip to Darkwell into his schedule. As soon as Michael sat down behind the glass, he pulled the handset off its cradle and said, “I need Jesus.”
Rick was at a loss for words. He had rehearsed his “sinner’s prayer” speech many times during his hour-and-a-half trip from Stonelee, and things were now out of order, in need of spontaneity that he wasn’t accustomed to.
“Really?” was all he could think to say.
“Yeah, really. I’ve been thinking a lot since we talked last week, and I now see it clearly. I need God in my life. I need Jesus. I’ve been searching for the answer to my problems and looking in all the wrong places, drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever, and I know I’ll never find it there.”
Pastor Rick was at first too shocked by the initial admission to notice the Bible grasped in Michael’s free hand. He smiled as he looked at it. “Have you been reading that?”
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Good. What can you tell me about it?”
“I know that Jesus loves me, that he says a lot about living right, and I know that I’m living wrong.”
“But do you know what it takes to live the way he says you should?”
“I think so.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah,” he replied, frustrated. “I do.”
Out of habit Pastor Rick opened his Bible to a passage he’d memorized many years before. Looking at the passage, he read, “’If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.’” Pausing to let the message sink in, he added, “Do you know what that means?”
“I think so.”
“Tell me.”
“I have to live for Jesus and stop living for me.”
He didn’t expect such a reply. “Do you believe?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“What do you believe?”
Michael opened his Bible to a passage he hadn’t yet memorized, but planned to. He read, “‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
Both stared at each other for several seconds. Pastor Rick broke the silence. “Yeah, that’s it. But are you ready to commit? Are you ready to give all you’ve got to Jesus?”
“Absolutely.”