Humpty Dumpty

National Day of Prayer May 7, 2009. I park my car and hurry to the park. It is a dreary and wet day. The downpour has finished but a light drizzle remains. I do my best to ignore the rain and concentrate on the service. A song begins to play and a man begins singing "Somebody's Praying Me Through." What a great song. I embrace the message.I notice a man slowly walking by the park. Something about his demeanor made me feel he was really lost. Not physically but spiritually. God prompted me to bow my head and pray for him. When I was finished he was gone. The encounter that I would have with him after the service was amazing. God came down and tried to reach this man. Only problem is that he is just like Humpty Dumpty. I have never met anyone so broken by life. God put us together at a point where he was vulnerable, searching. It was easy to get him to discuss his life and his views of God. You see, God abandoned him a long time ago. At least that is his viewpoint. He was sexually abused by his parents and beaten if he didn't cooperate. Why, he asked, would God allow something like that? He said he had never felt love. If God loved him, why had his life been so hard. Why is he stuck all alone, homeless in a strange city?

What do you say to such a broken person? Jesus loves you is just not sufficient. I told him that Jesus said that "in this world there will be trouble." I decided to tell him about my cancer. It really is nothing compared to his life but did get his attention. Later in the conversation, he told me that he wished he could take my cancer because his life was not worth anything. How that breaks my heart! The saddest thing that he said to me occurred when Dave, a local Christian radio celebrity walked by and I invited him to pray for Jim. "He doesn't know Jesus," I said. Jim replied "Oh, I know Jesus. He just doesn't know me."

So here I am days later contemplating my encounter, and thinking about Humpty Dumpty. All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put him back together again. He is broken beyond repair by human hands. But there is One who can fix Jim piece by piece. The only way to achieve this is if God's people pray, if they pray for Jim. God came down to Bucky Harris Park on May 7^th and took a piece of that fractured shell. He gently glued it back onto Jim's broken body. I saw it happen. Whether it will dry and become strong is up to Jim and up to me. You see, prayer is the glue that has the potential to heal even the Humpty Dumptys of this world. I plead with you to pray for Jim and all the other badly broken people in our world. Prayer is powerful. God is powerful. He can do anything - even save Jim. But only if God's people pray.

Thanks for listening!