What if I’m pretending
I was so excited and ready to hit the streets on Friday night with a new idea. I had been working on a way to start conversation about the difference between reality/truth vs. lies/fake truths. Finally this last week I saw a tract that on the front just says ‘What If... I’m pretending?’. On the back it asks some important thought-provoking questions. So my first conversation was with Randy, a homeless man downtown that I’ve never seen before. So I had barely handed him the card and asked him about what kinds of things we pretend about, and he starts giving me this long speech about that he doesn’t pretend about God. He basically said that he totally believes in God. And then we got to the real story - that he has been going through classes at Orlando Union Rescue Mission, and then one day he decided to leave and go sin because it had been a really long time since he had sinned like that. That was how he described it to me although I’ve removed a couple of details that weren’t worth mentioning. So he said when you’re close to God, God is with you; and when you go back into the worldiness and sin, God leaves you, until you come back. Now obviously someone doesn’t just accidentally go and sin like he did unless their heart is not aligned with God’s, and they still have a desire for sin. Since then he said he had spent four days [maybe slightly rounded down : -)] downtown getting in trouble and had not sought to turn back to God. He described himself as backslidden. He wasn’t even very broken over it, he said that he was strong and that he could just pick himself back up and keep going and that he could overcome this. So I told him that hearing him describe that tells me that he doesn’t yet have a new heart, one that only seeks after the things of God. And I pointed out his pride to him in saying that he was a good person and assuming that he is strong and can pick himself up and keep going. At that point, he started storming off away from me, so I figured the conversation was over. I’m assuming that’s what he acted like at the Orlando Union Rescue Mission as well. But after several seconds, he came back and said that he was sorry. He said that he wouldn’t just walk away from me like that, and that I was right about everything that I had said. He didn’t really change his mind then, but I trust that the Holy Spirit will continue to convict him and draw him to God. Anyway, he gave me a hug and left at that point.