Invested

Many years ago, I was hundreds of miles away from my home working as a supervising foreman on a construction crew erecting portions of commercial buildings in northern California. We were loaded with work and always a little short handed on experienced crew, so there was always an interest in retaining skilled hands whenever possible. That usually wasn't an easy task because the work was always hard, hot and fast paced. It was the kind of work that tended to attract hard core personalities with some bad habits when hiring from the local labor pool in whatever area we happened to be working in at the time.

Those of us who commuted from out of town would often stay in hotel rooms paid for by the company that we worked for and that would usually mean that the accommodations weren't always the best, but we learned to deal with it. Being a little older than most of the crew and in a position of authority with the company meant that I would often have a room to myself while the others shared two to a room, but there was one occasion when I found myself being strongly leveraged to share a room with someone that no one else would bunk with because he had a tendency to be violent at times. It turned out to be an experience that's almost as fresh in my memory as if it had happened yesterday.

I had been sent to San Jose as the "fixer" to complete a project that had encountered problems and had fallen behind schedule, which is where I encountered this character. He was in his later twenties, stocky, with shoulder length black hair, scars, a hardened face and cold, piercing eyes. He was very muscular and walked with the gate of a large gorilla. Outfitted with his chains, New York accent and black leather jacket, his overall appearance and demeanor left a continually menacing impression, but he worked fast and competently when given a task within his skill set. This made him an asset that we sorely needed at the time, but one that kept everyone else on the crew looking over their shoulder.

I didn't know this young man before I encountered him in San Jose, but his outward appearance and the way that he handled himself spoke volumes to me. So I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't struck with a certain dread and concern when I found that I was to helplessly close my eyes to sleep in the same room with him. What I didn't know at the time was that my God was about to test me in a way that my inner fear didn't see coming.

The first few evenings after work were quiet with few words passed between us. He was restless, continually moving and leaving the room at times that gave me periods of relief from wondering what he might do next and allowed me some time to relax. We eventually started to talk a little, mostly about superfluous things since we obviously didn't know each other or have much in common, when days later, out of the blue he began to talk about his life. He'd grown up in a gang and had eventually become an enforcer - a debt collector for drug dealers. He confessed that he'd hurt people, many people, but the way that he related these things that he'd done was in a nonthreatening tone. He wasn't trying to scare me. He was sharing his guilt. The burden of it was weighing on him terribly.

Up until that moment, what I'd witnessed from this obviously hardened creature was a constantly threatening demeanor that left me sleep deprived as I unwillingly shared that cheap hotel room with him. As he became emotional in the relating of his life story, animated and even more unpredictable, the test became clear. Could I look past what I saw and heard from him to love him? Sensing the guilt, the hurt and pain that was inside of him, could I overcome my fear of him in the midst of that fury of emotion pouring out of him to share with him the One who could take it all away and let him start anew? Could I possibly see in Him what Jesus saw in Him and speak life into him over the torrent of horrific things that was spilling out of him?

I don't remember everything word for word that I shared with him that night, but I know that the Holy Spirit entered that run down hotel room in a mighty way and shared the truth of God's available mercy and grace with him for hours into the night. And that at the end of it all, that previously hard, threatening, and unrelenting figure was bent, on his knees with tears streaming down his face - sobbing with relief and gratitude toward Christ for the forgiveness that he thought was impossible.

We worked together for months after that night. That hardness was gone and the threatening demeanor was replaced with a smile and occasional laughter. From that day on he referred to me as "Dad" and appointed himself as my personal protector. I happened to cross paths with him a decade later. He still referred to me as Dad and though I could tell that he might still be making some poor decisions, the truth is in him and that's a tool that the Holy Spirit can continue to use to draw him back to where he needs to be.

There's a challenge for many of us to overcome at one time or another. And that challenge is to see in anyone that we encounter the same thing that Jesus saw in us even before we believed - a soul worth dying for.

"When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners."  Romans 5:6-8 (NLT)

There's a difference between paying lip service to Christ and being invested in relationship with Him to a point of being invested in what He loves because of our love for Him... and He knows it. It's hard sometimes being human, because of the appearance and actions of other fallible human beings, to look past the failings and filth to see what a loving Christ sees. But if we're serious about our love for Him, then it's important that we learn to see what He sees and to love what He loves. It's what he saw and still sees in us - the image we were ALL created in. 

"No, O people, the LORD has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 (NLT)