Last Sunday night, Carrie and I went to bed around 11pm. I was unable to get settled and fall asleep, which is unusual for me. I just sensed that something was brewing outside, in the streets. Sure enough, around 11:45, I heard a frantic knock at the door. I rushed to answer it and greeted two very frightened teenagers.
They came into our living room and began to tell Carrie and me that their older sister just moved into the neighborhood two weeks ago with her newborn, along with her boyfriend.
Due to family issues, their mom and the boyfriend were at odds. While they were over for a visit that evening, an altercation had unfolded. The boyfriend had become so upset, that he told the entire household that he was going to get a gun and “shoot up” the place. He left, then returned with a gun and began to shoot throughout the house. These two teenagers grabbed the newborn and made a desperate attempt to get out of the door to safety. They placed the newborn into the floorboard of a car, closed the door to the car and then ran for their lives. Hence, the knock at our door.
As they sat on our couch, they had a one-track mind. They wanted to call their mom and make sure she was alive. Asking to use our phone, they began calling her again, and again. On their fourth attempt, she answered and gave them assurance that she was okay. She let them know that the police had arrived and that the situation was under control. I watched life literally return to their faces as they received this news. They then called their father and he came to get them from our home.
While the teenagers were waiting for their father to come pick them up from our house, Carrie began asking them how they knew us because they did not look familiar to us. They told us that they did not know us at all. “You mean you didn’t know that this was the Pastors’ house?”, Carrie asked. “No”, they responded. Carrie then asked why they ran to our house to which they responded, “We saw the light and we just ran to it.”
My Father-in-law, who pastors Edgewood Baptist Church, once said that opportunities often come in the form of interruption. The purpose of the Light of Christ shining within us is that it would interrupt the darkness around us. Our porch light being on that night serves as a great illustration of what, in reality, our lives are meant to look like as believers in a dark world. May our lives shine so brightly that those living in darkness would be drawn to it, and in so doing, find “life and the light of men” (John 1:4).
- Rob