{"id":123,"date":"2009-03-12T09:31:32","date_gmt":"2009-03-12T16:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/144.208.71.131\/~shinethru\/palmquists\/blog\/?p=123"},"modified":"2015-02-20T12:31:26","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T19:31:26","slug":"shepherds-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/shepherds-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"The path to a shepherd’s heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, we witnessed a pastor bringing a young woman from his church to the abortion chamber to have her child killed<\/a>.\u00a0 Thanks to the Internet, I found the name, address, and phone number of the church, and I could even look at pictures of the outside of this small country church.<\/p>\n

The church is located in an area I hadn’t visited for decades, a small farming community in Tulare County, about an hour’s drive from Bakersfield.\u00a0 Nevertheless, a series of circumstances provided the opportunity for me to take the time to locate this pastor.\u00a0 What would God want me to say when I had the opportunity to speak face to face with this man of God who had allowed himself to be used to facilitate the death of an innocent child?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was late Wednesday night when I first drove down the muddy street where the church is located.\u00a0 Throughout the night I prayed and dreamed for God to open the door to talk with this pastor and to give me favor.\u00a0 As I imagined what could happen, I hoped that the pastor would respond the way King David responded when the prophet Nathan confronted him<\/a> with his sin.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, I walked around the church, praying and trying to find some information on how to contact the pastor.\u00a0 I had contemplated contacting the pastor by phone, but a face to face encounter seemed to me to be best.<\/p>\n

Finding no clues at the church on how to contact the pastor, I began walking through the neighborhood, asking God to lead me to someone who could tell me how to reach the pastor.\u00a0 When I saw a small fire smouldering outside one house, it provided an opportunity for me to contact the residents.\u00a0 They were already aware of the fire, but when I asked them about the church, they pointed me to another house at the end of the street whose residents were able to tell me the pastor’s name and describe to me the approximate location of the pastor’s home.<\/p>\n

The pastor lives in another nearby community, so I drove there and prayed that God would lead me to the right house.\u00a0 When I saw the pastor’s name displayed above the door, I knew I had found the right place.\u00a0 I parked a couple of blocks away (hoping that he wouldn’t see my vehicle, which he might have recognized from his day outside Bakersfield’s abortion center) and walked back to the pastor’s home.<\/p>\n

When I knocked on the door, his grandson answered, explaining that the pastor had gone to the emergency room with his sister, who was having difficulty breathing.\u00a0 Several times throughout the day I checked back to see if the pastor had returned.\u00a0 I also went back to the church’s neighborhood for further investigation.\u00a0 Each encounter provided me with a little bit more information.\u00a0 The long wait provided ample opportunities for God to prepare my heart through prayer and scriptures.\u00a0 In particular, God led me to meditate on Psalm 119 (read more about some of the insights God gave me<\/a>).\u00a0 God also put Matthew 18 on my heart, because it deals with God’s view of children, the penalties for harming these “little ones”, a true shepherd’s desire to save one member of his flock whose life is endangered, and instructions on handling sin in the church.\u00a0 I hoped to go through these scriptures with the pastor if I had the opportunity.<\/p>\n

During the afternoon wait, I decided that I would go home if the pastor had not returned by dusk.\u00a0 So, as darkness began to fall, I walked to the pastor’s home one last time.\u00a0 Up to this point, I had not identified myself or explained the reason for my visit, other than vaguely saying that I was trying to help someone.\u00a0 But at this final visit for the day, the pastor’s grandson asked me if I wanted to leave a phone number.\u00a0 So I took out some pro-life literature and wrote my name and phone number on the back.<\/p>\n

I drove home that night, but I hoped to make the two hour return trip the following day, because I had learned that the church has services on Friday nights.\u00a0 However, I feared that Terri might not want me to go back.<\/p>\n

All day long on Friday, I wondered if the pastor would call back, but he never did.\u00a0 Finally, I mustered up the courage to tell Terri of my desire to go to the church’s Friday night service.\u00a0 Thankfully, she agreed, but first I needed to drop some of the kids off at a church activity in Bakersfield.\u00a0 On the way down the hill from our home in Tehachapi, the van started making a horribly loud vibration noise every time I went over 40 mph.\u00a0 When I first heard the noise, I pulled over and lifted the hood, expecting to see a frayed belt.\u00a0 But everything looked fine under the hood.<\/p>\n

The faster I drove, the louder the noise became.\u00a0 Eventually, I came to believe (erroneously) that the noise came from the speedometer cable.\u00a0 I felt that this problem was sent from the devil to try to distract me from doing what God wanted that night, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I might find myself broken down by the side of the road.<\/p>\n

When I finally arrived on the street where the church is located, it was almost 8 pm.\u00a0 I had thought that the service began at 6 pm, so I feared that it might already be over.\u00a0 I was relieved to see several cars in the small parking lot.\u00a0 I parked down at the end of the street, not wanting anyone to see my vehicle in case of a negative reaction to my presence.<\/p>\n

I began walking to the church, but immediately I was filled with such a sense of anticipation at seeing what God was about to do that I began to run.\u00a0\u00a0 When I entered the church, the song service was in progress.\u00a0 I recognized the pastor at the front of the church playing a guitar.\u00a0 To his right, I saw a woman who looked like the one the pastor had brought in for the abortion, but obviously older.\u00a0 “Is that her mother?” I wondered (yes, it was her).<\/p>\n

About 10 adults were in the room, along with about 15 children.\u00a0 A young boy being watched by an elderly woman in the row ahead of me grinned at me often during the service.\u00a0 (He was the brother of the aborted child, and the elderly woman was their great-grandmother.)<\/p>\n

After a few songs, the worship leader said “let’s bring the children up here,” referencing Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:1-5<\/a> relating to children.\u00a0 “Some churches don’t want children in the service, but we know that every child’s life is valuable.”\u00a0 I later learned that some of the children who were brought to the front at this moment are siblings of the child who had just been aborted.<\/p>\n

The Friday evening service is designated as “testimony night” at this church, so everybody was expected to stand up and give a testimony.\u00a0 However, my original intention in coming to the service was not to say anything publicly, but to seek a private conversation with the pastor, so I remained silent.<\/p>\n

After everybody else had given a testimony, the worship leader pointed to me.\u00a0 “What about you?\u00a0 Do you have anything to say?”<\/p>\n

“Me?”<\/p>\n

“Yes, you.”<\/p>\n

Praying that God would give me the right words to speak, I rose to my feet.\u00a0 “I thank God for the life He has given me, and for the opportunity to be used by Him.\u00a0 My wife and I are involved in an outreach to women entering the abortion center in Bakersfield, and we were blessed this week to see God save at least six children from abortion.”<\/p>\n

The room erupted in applause and shouts of praise.\u00a0 But the pastor looked at the floor, a grim expression on his face.<\/p>\n

As the worship time ended, the pastor sat down in the front row.\u00a0 He wouldn’t be preaching tonight.\u00a0 Instead, an older gentleman named Marvin rose to the pulpit.<\/p>\n

“The Bible says that in the last days, the old men will dream dreams.\u00a0 Well, I had a dream the other night that has changed my life forever.”<\/p>\n

I could hardly believe my ears when I heard Marvin say, “I dreamed that I was thrown into a vat of blood.”<\/p>\n

Read more of this amazing story.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, we witnessed a pastor bringing a young woman from his church to the abortion chamber to have her child killed.\u00a0 Thanks to the Internet, I found the name, address, and phone number of the church, and I could …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12,21],"class_list":["post-123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry-projects","tag-40-days-for-life","tag-pastors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}