Come to Jesus

Being a paramedic in a big city presents me with the unique opportunity to see people at their best and worst at times. Most of the calls that we go on in a 24 hours shift are usually benign and I would say that less than 5% of them are actually life threatening. So this allows us to spend a large portion of our time on calls with the patient just sitting and talking with them if we so choose to do that. Many crews tend to rush in and then rush out of calls but I really like to take an extra few minutes with the patient to really find out the whole story. There are many reasons that people call 911 but one of the biggest reasons is that people are often alone or scared. You never know what opportunities can arise when you just sit with people and let them talk.
One such example comes to mind from when we went on a call yesterday. We got dispatched to a 65 year old female who was in a care home and had slipped in the bathroom and hit her head. Well, she had very little to complain about but after asking about her history I found out that she had terminal cancer and was now in this nursing home for hospice care. So as we were asking questions I felt something pulling at my heart - kind of like when the rebels got too close to the death star and its tractor beam began pulling them into it. At first I tried to block it out but after a few minutes I knew exactly what it was. God was pulling me in to this lady and he wanted me to share Christ with her before I left the scene. I don't even know if you would call it pulling as much as I felt like if I didn't talk to her I was going to either have a seizure or throw up on her bed. That would have then started a barf- a- rama and that would not have been pretty. But that gives you some insight as to how consumed and bound up I was on this call by the time we finished assessing her.
So I sat down on the edge of her bed and mustered up the courage to ask how she was doing. She said that she was alone out here in Tucson with no kids or husband to leave behind when she died. I told her that it must be very tough to go through all of this alone and if she had a faith in the Lord at all. She had told me that she had an appreciation for everyone's religion and respected Jesus but faith was something that she had not given much though to up to this point. She also told me that she couldn't see herself as a believer in Christ because she had been deeply hurt by a christian family that she had worked for. I told her that it is hard being hurt by others especially those you were close with. I tried to empathize with her letting her know that others hurt us sometimes and that we tend to judge Christ based on the actions of people. I didn't want to press the subject too much so I told her that I would pray for her and she responded very warmly to my gesture. She told me that I was very kind and that she appreciated me taking time out of my day to sit and talk with her.
I don't know if she will ever give another thought to one word of our conversation that we had the other day. I would like to think that in some way I made a difference in her life for a few moments and that she may spend a little time thinking about what a relationship with Christ could mean to her. In the end isn't that all we can really do for others- Take the time to listen, love them where they are at, and pray for God to touch their hearts. We can put ourselves out there and knock at the door of the unbeliever and hope that they will open up. Then we need to just stand back and let God work his magic !!

Empty Me Jesus - Why it's there !!

So I am riding my bike a few weeks ago to the firehouse in the early morning as I have been doing on and off now for several years. After trudging through what seemed like quicksand for the first 15 minutes I finally get into my groove and begin to take in the awesome morning sun while I pedal. I will usually ride the 30 mile course in about an hour and a half so I have time to think about a WHOLE lot of stuff. And for the most part my rides are very uneventful so I begin the day by praying. Ahhh... a peaceful morning started off with a prayer!! Nothing would be finer than a connection with God early in the morning but I always tend to get sidetracked. I start off my prayers with great fervor and focus but tend to change subjects about 30 times in my mind due to lack of discipline... or is it ADD? Okay, it's ADD but I realize that this makes for exciting times in my prayer life with a change in subject every 15 seconds!! So I am coursing through this prayer, subject to subject, and I have now forgotten where I am at about 10 times over. My passion for connection has long passed and I feel like I should be in a prayer care home for the lost and unfocused. So for the umteenth time I start over hoping to regain my zest for finishing this thing strong but something keeps nagging at me this morning. Like a rogue nosehair that won't stop tickling the old septum I felt something that kept grabbing my attention. It's like God was saying to me that we weren't changing course on this ship and we weren't coming back to the same place ever again. So I stop praying at this point and it is then that 'Empty Me' by Jeremy Camp comes on my mp3 player. So I begin to intently listen to the words of this song that I have heard probably a 100 times over and never taken notice of before this morning. But as I was pedaling it grabbed me and I felt like those words were talking right to my heart. Call it an epiphany, breakthrough, grand moment, or whatever else you want to but I know exactly what happened at that moment. God was speaking directly to me through that song and changing me. You see I had been praying for all of these years thinking that I had to hit so many targets in my prayer in order for them to count that I was missing the point all along. To me it was like I was in an 'Amazing Race' prayer and I had to get to reach the checkpoints along the course all in order before I could make a mad dash to the end of the stage. Except the only thing is that I had been running the same course for the past 15 years or so since I accepted Christ. So Jeremy Camp's words to this song shook me up me in a way that I haven't felt in a long time during my prayer life. As he sung the words to his song I sang along in my mind and for the first time in a while I felt a truly deep connection with God that morning.
Could it really be that simple for us that we tend to look right past it !! Have I had the tendency to just walk aimlessly through my prayers day after day so much so that I had lost what I was looking for in the first place. A connection with God !! For a long time I had been willing to make a check list of the things that I needed to hit every morning in my prayer so I could get through it and call it a day !! Mom, Dad, kids, thanks for it everything, thanks for heaven, protect me and the family- Amen !! Wow !! I wonder why I was uninspired fopr such a long time. My prayer life had become a chore checklist with nothing behind it.
So I listened to 'Empty Me' that morning and learned what it meant to be passionate again about prayer. I needed to step out of the way of myself and just ask the Lord to take over my life. No checklist and no rambling man but simple humility with a willing heart. After the song was finished I was so moved that I simply began repeating a portion of it again and again to myself.

Jesus Burn Away

My Desire For Anything

That is Not of YOU and is of Me

I Want More of YOU and Less of Me

So simple and yet so profound that it was life changing for me.

Christ please empty me of myself and fill me with you, Amen !!

HE knows what to do with the rest.

Empty Me Jesus !!

Holy Fire Burn Away

My Desire For Anything

That is Not of YOU and is of Me

I Want More of YOU and Less of Me

Jeremy Camp- Empty Me

Who fills me on the inside more- HIM or me ?

Click on the title of this post to watch the video of 'Empty Me'