Mr. R.

Couple of days ago, I went to this lady’s office because I needed to see her to ask from her some information. As we sat there for a moment, we started talking about some panamenians who are currently working on the cruise ships and their stories. Suddenly, R. walked into the office and I was so happy to see him and so was him. We shared greetings and a hug and really, I was so happy to see R. To make a long story short, he was fired from the ships because of some misbehaviour. After we finish telling stories of the ol’ good days, it was time to go, and he did ask me for a ride, so I gladly accepted. As we were on our way to his place, we started getting more deep in our conversation. He was rescued from the grip of the enemy a few years ago, and he had been attending his local christian church and he had been growing fast as a follower of Christ, but he stepped back while on the ships and decided to follow the world again rather than God. He took that decision and I saw him going down that road a year ago while we were toguether on the same boat. Although I tried to speak some sense into his head, he would just not listen at all. Now after more than a year, I see him again, he is jobless, he sorta feel hopeless, skiny out of going through some serious economical problem and he seems to be still struggling to keep up his personal relationship with God. I felt so bad, kind of angry toward the enemy who really knows how to pull his dirty tricks on the believers whenever he is given a chance. Ever since, R. had been going through seriuous family problems and every sort of thing you can imagine can happen to anyone who ‘has a really bad luck”. I really felt myself compelled to encourage him to see this whole situation with a different perspective, although it seemed impossible to do. Our God is a gentleman, he will never force you or me or anybody else to take a decision or to follow his wonderful plan for our lives, he will respect if I or you decide to go on another direction. We are free to do so, we will always be, but what we fail to understand, or should I say, what the devil stop us from realizing is that, we CAN NOT choose the consequences of our decisions. R. is paying high for the set of decisions he took some time ago, and it will not be easy to overcome and he will cry some more and yet, it doesn’t mean his heavenly Father abandoned him. Our Father in Heaven is watching over him and is looking at him with his merciful love waiting for him to turn his face toward Him once again and ready to rescue him. God is all powerful, there is nothing he can’t do, but one thing he will never do is to coherce us. We basically get ourselve in a position where God can’t do anything for us because of his divine nature of not interfering with our own decisions. So once R. or anyone of us get fed up of living a disgraceful, empty and meaningless life and we decide to crawl back to Dad and ask for forgiveness and mercy, he won’t have to be asked twice. The Bible says that Jesus is interceding for us before the Father. He is basically our lawyer, when we hire his services of redempting and justifying us before the Father, He promised He would do it. R. and I spent some time toguether in the car before stepping outside, and we talked about this and we prayed and I trust that God is going to bring into completion what he already started a few years back in his life when R. first heard and accepted Him. Amen.