Prodigal

Friends,

I was thinking about some old friends of mine yesterday. I have shared this story before, but it is such an blessing to me that I wanted to share it again in this form. Wilmer and Iona Brown moved to the area where we were working with the church in the early 90's. Iona came to visit us several times and soon became a member. She had been a member where they had been living previously, but Wilmer had not been attending worship services with her. Over the next couple of years, I would go out to visit Iona and Wilmer would be there, but he would be distracted with other things. So, although we would have friendly exchanges, we never really got to know each other.
After we had been working with the church for about four years, (three years after the Browns had moved there), Wilmer came to see me in my office one day. He wanted to visit, so I asked him to sit down. I really did not know him at all, so I didn't know what to expect. He said, "Don, I became a Christian when Iona and I were first married and I went to church with her, but after a few years, I had a disagreement with some of the people where we were attending -- so, I quit. I have been gone for thirty years now, but the Lord has put it on my heart to come back." I was amazed and pleased to hear this all at the same time. It seems that he had enjoyed getting to know a number of the folks from the church who had gone up to visit with him and Iona and it prompted him to want to come back. Praise the Lord! The next part of our conversation was just as amazing to me. He said, "Don, I feel like I need to be baptized again." I said, "okay, but why?" He said "I have been gone for so long, that I just believe that it is the right thing to do." I explained to him that the blood of Jesus was still sufficient to cleanse his sins (1 John 1:5-10), even though he had been gone so long. He persisted and I prayed with him. I did not want him to have an unclean conscience, so based upon 1 Peter 3:21, I baptized him. He was a faithful member with Iona after this event until he passed away a few years ago. It just reminds me of how thankful that I am for the grace and mercy of my Lord. Even though an individual could be gone from the Lord and His church for so long, that he could still respond to a second opportunity for life (like Peter did with his Lord, John 21:15ff). This simply reveals the power of God -- nothing more, nothing less.

Don