Miraculous change

“I believe in miracles, I’ve seen a soul set free.
Miraculous the change in one redeemed at Calvary.”
For weeks those lyrics have stuck on my thoughts.
It began with a phone call. The caller said ‘Buddy’ had moved out of his daughter’s house.
“They broke up.”
“Oh,” we mumbled. Not sad. We had prayed for the end of that toxic relationship.
The caller continued, “Then Buddy called me a week later. He said ‘I collapsed in the shower crying out to God.’ Buddy said he needed to change his life, his actions, his job and go to church.”
He became a follower of Christ.
We cautiously rejoiced and wondered how real it was.
I looked at Buddy’s Facebook page. I had never friended Buddy. His posts seemed raunchy to me. Facebook agreed and put both him and his fiance in Facebook “jail” for a long time. When we visited we usually only saw his ‘fiance.’
However, one visit he was there and my husband listened to Buddy talk emphatically and at length about hunting, fishing, capturing critters and how he dealt with folks. He used swear words liberally as adjectives and verbs until my husband interrupted him, “Please stop using swear words. I don’t need or want to hear them.”
Buddy’s face turned red with anger. Only another person’s intervention calmed the tension.
The next time we visited he mostly stayed in the bedroom.
We awkwardly prayed for Buddy and his fiance. We prayed for change or for them to break up. We prayed for his fiance to become a believer. We did not focus on Buddy. We focused on the one we knew best: his fiance. We prayed that she realize the toxicity and make a better decision. We floundered in our prayers for Buddy.
After months of talking about breaking up, Buddy moved out. A week later he became a believer.
I heard he wanted a Bible. I messaged him.
“Try the YouVersion Bible App on your phone, It has dozens of Bibles. Try the CEV or Easy Version,” I suggested.
He responded, “Thank you. I just finished Genesis in the King James. An easier version would be great. The Lord is working with me to better myself … the least I can do is meet Him halfway.”
He had read Genesis?! Unbelievable.
He added, “I have been a very lost man for a very long time. I need God. There is no other way through life or afterlife without Jesus.”
He began a new job, chose healthier life styles and his Facebook posts changed. I could read them without blushing.
Obviously still a newborn babe in Christ, Buddy needs men to disciple him plus lots of prayer warriors interceding for him.
Personally, hearing his testimony astonished my husband and I. We had prayed for his fiance. We fumbled in knowing how to pray for Buddy.
We should have cued into God who says He does not want any to perish but that all should come to repentance. For this lost soul and others Christ came and died.
For this reason today we celebrate Easter. The miracle of Christ coming alive after burial and thus He conquered death.
Buddy’s immediate change underscores the greatest miracle of all is when Christ comes into a life and changes a person.
I am rethinking how I pray for others. God sent Jesus into the world so that all might come to believe. He did not want any to perish – not even the people that I just want to sort of disappear off my radar.
Even to those folks God offers the miracle of a soul set free. Definitely something to remember this Easter.