| The loving ShephardI want to share a recent story that happened in my family. 14 years ago, I made the most important decision in my life and accepted Jesus Christ as the one and only true and living God, the one who saved me from eternal separation from all that is good. Since then, my sister and I have been praying for my non-believing parents that one day they may also accept Christ as their saviour so that we will never have to be separated but can look forward to eternal life. For most of his life, my dad has been an atheist. From the buddhist temples of Malaysia, to the Taoist halls in Taiwan, to the churches in the States, my dad has never regarded any temple, god, or religion with anything more than just a historical interest. He would much rather preach the teachings of Confuscious and watch history channel specials on dinosaurs and primordial history than attend a church service. In high school, my father allowed me to believe in God but limited my church attendance to Sundays only. I was not allowed to attend teens group and was only once in awhile allowed to go on church-related trip. He did not believe in God. Years went by and God began to change the lives of my sister and I. Time after time, God blessed our lives with marriages, jobs, finances, and other wonderful happenings. We were extremely blessed by God's kindness. When my sister met her now-husband, my family started having dinners together. We learned to say grace before meals, a habit which my father has now adopted into all family meals. When we asked my father if he believed in God, instead of quoting Confuscious, he would now say "I am waiting for God to call me. I want to be sincere in my faith. Not yet." This past week I've been talking to a very bewildered and excited version of my dad. One night, the battery in his old 1990 Mazda MPV died while he was still driving on the highway. Somehow, he made it home to his cul-de-sac, even though there wasn't enough battery to even light the battery-low warning display. At first he thought he was just exteremly lucky. The next day my dad found a flier outside his home with what he thought was an 8x11 size picture of the face of Jesus. Instead of recyling it, he decided to keep the picture. Someone he knew that Jesus had saved him the night before. After that, my dad could not shake the picture of Jesus from his mind. From the time he woke up til the time he went to bed, jesus was all that he saw. When my dad went to work, he shared what happened with a coworker who told him, "You remind me of a story. A shepherd had 100 sheep but he lost one. He left 99 sheep to go looking for the lost sheep." Immediately, my dad thought to himself, "Could I be that lost sheep?" While he was still awake, he saw a vision: He was standing in a fog on a bank. On one side was himself, and on the other side was me, my sister, Rob, Dan, and my niece and nephew. We were playing and telling my father to come over and join us but he could not cross the chasm. He tried but could not get over to the other side. All of the sudden he saw Jesus before him, wearing beggar's clothing. He could not see his face, just his back. He was wearing a belt and had long hair. My father knelt in front of Him, and Jesus placed his hands on his head. Then he would wake from the vision. My father saw this vision many times. In his words, "When I dream about hitting the lotto I never remember it the next day. But this vision won't leave my mind!!! My coworker tells me this is not your imagination, this is true and now you're telling me this is true. I'm 55% there. Don't push me, but I think I might be getting baptised one day." Please pray for him. Praise the Lord! |
May 
