"Young Man"

"O my darling, lingering in the gardens, your companions are fortunate to hear your voice. Let me hear it too!" (S.O.S. 8:13) NLT

  "The bride, a princess, looks glorious in her golden gown. In her beautiful robes, she is led to the king, accompanied by her bridesmaids. What a joyful and enthusiastic procession as the enter the king's palace!" (Psalms 45:13-15 NLT) 

  Knowing God! Isn't that what this is really all about? If you do not know Him, then how can you possibly try to love Him? Our relationship with God needs to be the strongest and most committed relationship that we have: stronger than the one we have with our wife, our brother, our best friend; if it matters at all, even ourselves! There is no one alive that should matter more than God; our own lives are included. 

  Yesterday afternoon I had the chance to listen to a message about ministering to young boys and girls that are locked up and behind bars for things they might have done; some of which were barely 12 or 13 when they were put into the system. The voice I was listening to was that of a woman, but it could have been the voice of a man; either way, there was something that needed to be said, and she was the one that was needed to be saying it. 

  She shared how she got started in the ministry of speaking to kids that were locked up, especially to young women that were trapped in the system. In case you did not know this, we call it a system because it is a mechanism of complex parts, most of which are made to form the framework of who you are and then brand you, whether or not that is what you are. How do I know? Because I once was in that system; and by the grace of God, I was taken out! 

  It started when I was eleven, as a friend and I had stolen a couple cap guns from K-Mart and went next door to Thrifty's to get an ice cream cone. As we were in line, an armored truck pulled up in front of the store; my friend saw it and went out to greet the guard as he stepped out of the truck. I heard the cap gun go off, and then saw my friend being tossed into the store, flying into the wall. Long story short, we spent the next eight plus hours at the police station, being accused of as decoys for the real robbers; and they were not going to take no for an answer. 

  When my mom came to get me, I saw that she was very upset; but her condition was more about fear for me, and the friction to take place once we were home. My stepdad had been drinking, and he had a tendency to over react; and that's putting it mildly. My friend ended up getting it worse than me; so much so, that within a week or two, he had shot a police officer that had been driving through the projects after curfew. That was the last time I remember seeing or hearing of my friend.

  From the time I was eleven until the time I turned eighteen I was on probation, had been locked down, in and out, for probably at least one third of those seven years. When I was seventeen, I was just released from a Fire Camp, after being down for almost 16 months; within one months time I was arrested again, and given the choice of going to Youth Authority or leaving the State. I went to Texas to live with my grandfather and tried to change my life. 

  When I turned eighteen, I worked on enlisting in the Navy, but needed my probation officer's help to encourage them to let me join. In the Navy, I quickly became heavily involved with drugs; not that I wasn't before, but my use of drugs and sales, had taken on a whole new life; a life that seemed was out of control. I ended up getting arrested for possession with intent to sell, for PCP; got fined, put on probation, and released back to the Navy. Eventually I was let go of by the Navy, as I refused to quit dealing and using drugs.

  Then I met my wife! We had this one thing in common, we loved to get high together; besides that, I was trouble and she was a Flower! Neither one of us wanted to get married, so we settled on living together and raising a son. I did what I knew best: I sold drugs. Before long, the deals were getting bigger and bigger; what started as selling ounces turned into selling pounds. In the summer of 1980 I was arrested again for the last time; went to court for almost a year, and was allowed to report for my one year sentence in June of 1981. 

  In September of 1981 I meet Jesus Christ at the cross, and I was set free from the system! I shared part of my story, because this message I heard was about a young girl, almost 18, and had been locked down for five years. For her, that was the safest place for her to be, as her mother was addicted to drugs and had pimped her daughter off to pay for drugs since she was a very young girl. This is not the fault of this little girl; but the system really does not care or look for the fault, it simply tries to deal with the problem. The real problem is that this little girl needs to feel as though she is worth something to somebody; she needed to know that she is loved!    

  Do you know that God loves you? Is it absolutely clear to you that He dearly cares for you and only wants what is the very best for you? Even if your life does not seem to be going the way that you want, is His love still apparent and real in your life? This is all so temporary and short! The funny thing is, there was one more thing my wife and I had in common: we both believed we were going to die before we reached the age of thirty...

"Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he is never to die again. Death no longer has any power over him. When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus." (Romans 6:5-11) NLT