Take Someone with You to Heaven by carol middlekauff

Author:carol middlekauff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

Why Was Johnny Hesitating?

It was a warm fall night. Chuck and I had spent an hour with our mentee kids in the gym at the juvenile detention boot camp near San Marcos, Texas. We were walking across the parking lot to our car.

“I wonder if those people need some help,” Chuck said.

This was odd. Chuck never notices these things. I do. If I see a man, he says, “He knows what he’s doing.” If it’s a woman, Chuck changes the tire, or whatever.

This time was different. I hadn’t even noticed the man standing by the dark Chevrolet Camaro with the trunk open, but if I had, I probably would have heard my internal warning system say, Get in the car and lock the doors. After all, we were in the parking lot of a detention center. Anyone who wasn’t a uniformed officer or a mentor would have to be one of those dreadful family members our mentees often told us about.

But Chuck headed toward the dark car, saying, “I’m going to see if I can help.”

I was hurrying to our car, planning to get in and lock the doors, when I heard Chuck say, “We’ll give you a ride to that Shell station up the road.”

The man was probably just as nervous about getting in the car with us at the detention center as I was about him. I heard him say, “Wait in the car, honey, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I hadn’t noticed the man’s wife either. He no doubt thought she would be better off taking her chances in the parking lot.

Anyway, that was how this thirty-something man named Johnny, who was indeed the father of one of those juveniles, ended up in the back seat of our car. “They ran out of gas,” Chuck said to me. “We’re taking him up to that Shell station.”

We chatted a little about what a pain it is to run out of gas. It wasn’t long before I asked Johnny my favorite question, “If you died today, would you go to heaven?”

He didn’t answer right away. It crossed my mind that it was crossing his mind that we might be planning to help him get there sooner.

“No. I’d probably go to hell,” he finally said.

“Why is that?” Chuck asked.

“I’ve done lots of bad stuff,” Johnny replied.

“Would you like to hear how the Bible says you could be sure you would go to heaven instead?” I asked. “It won’t take long.”

“Sure!” he said.

As far as my seatbelt would allow, I turned in my seat to look at Johnny in the back seat behind Chuck and shared the F.A.I.T.H. scriptures, which were handy in my head—memorized. As we drove up beside the pump at the gas station, Johnny’s expression was saying that he was thrilled with the idea that God would forgive his sins, so I asked if he wanted to pray to invite Jesus into his life.

But Johnny said nothing.

He and Chuck got out of the car to pump gasoline into a red plastic container.

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