I recently had a powerful experience while speaking at the Modesto Gospel Mission. I was speaking on true progress and the Tower of Babel. After I was done preaching, a few different people came up to me and told me some pretty incredible stories.
One man, who is older, told me that after his kids finished college, he sold everything, give it to charity, and moved into the Gospel Mission to spend time with people. Someone standing nearby had said that this man had already been an incredible blessing in their life. This gentleman’s plan, after spending some time in the Gospel Mission, was to get an RV and drive around the country. I asked him how he felt. And he told me that he had never felt more free in his life. I could see the truth of that statement in his eyes.
Another person, this one a young man, and said that he had struggled with drugs his whole life. But now he was turning his life around, doing the right thing, and was trusting in God. He shared how God was working in his life. And I looked at him and give him a big hug and told him that he was my brother, and that if he had figured out that Jesus is the answer, then he had figured out the secret of life.
Finally, a third person had told me how he had been at the gospel mission for a few months and had been working on the programs there. He had been applying himself to do the things that he needed to do, the steps that he needed to take in order to really recover and live out God’s plan for his life. He told me about the progress that he had been making – that God had been making – in his life. I looked at him and said, “That’s what I was preaching on tonight!” He looked at me and said, “Exactly that’s what real progress is.”
As I left the gospel mission that night, I was overwhelmed with gratitude. I was so thankful to have been used by God to bless these people’s lives. And they had blessed my life. And it helped me realize something: maybe those who have a lot of money, who haven’t lost everything, have a harder time realizing what life is all about. Sometimes you need to have nothing in order to understand that Jesus is everything.
