God has called us to go. Why do we go? The answer is found in Isaiah.

<p>God has called us to go. Why do we go? The answer is found in Isaiah.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

South Bay SDA Church

Jack Philips

Running

I want to share a little bit, though, about something from my life.

See, my wife and I were not raised, some of you have heard my story, know that we were not raised Adventist, and I was not a Christian.

And my wife and I, when we met, really weren't Christians.

She was raised with a Christian background.

When we met, we went on a date and 1 of our very first dates was to play disc golf.

I'm spying you out because I love to play.

And as we're playing, 1 of her friends that was a female, she left 1 of the discs at a basket in the back and that basket is just where you throw the disc at.

She left it back there, she ran back to get it and after she retrieved it she was running back and that is when a group of young men took notice of her.

About 16 or 17 young men started hollering things at her.

I was not a Christian, but I do not approve of such behavior, then nor now.

But then I wasn't a Christian, So my mouth started running.

And I started yelling at this group of young men various things.

Well, as I knew would happen 1 day, if you live a certain lifestyle, it will catch up with you.

And if you have a mouth on you, it will catch up with you.

And that day it did, because these guys didn't just yell back, they immediately started running to a pickup truck, and each 1 picking up a pole, or a stick, or a bat, or whatever they had in the back and each started running my direction.

Well at the time I was not a runner like I am now so the hope of outrunning a group of men was Not there, so I just stood and Reserved all energy that I had and was immediately Surrounded by a group of men and the person who was leading this group stood face to face with me and then He began to swing And God intervened can I just say that God intervened and saved my life that day because he just stopped?

And when he chose not to interact with me, no 1 else would touch me, no matter what I did, no matter what I said.

They would not touch me, lay a hand on me.

I share this with you because my wife and I decided we would go to this park all the time.

That's the kind of area it was where you would encounter these sorts of groups and a lot of other activity.

But we like to go play disc golf there and we became Christians and we kept going there.

And we would go early on Sunday morning because if you know anything about early Sunday mornings, most people who do this sort of lifestyle are not up and around.

So we would go early Sunday mornings, but this park had this big community pool and we wanted to go swimming 1 day.

So we decided that our group that went and played disc golf would stay and go swimming after we got done.

So we played disc golf in this park, we went swimming, we had a great time.

And the park started filling up and we were about to take off when I was sitting in the locker room with my friends, and we're sitting in a circle.

We're getting changed and dried off and about to head out when this guy walks in.

He walks into the locker room, and he doesn't look like someone going to the pool.

People going to the pool have a smile on their face for 1.

In fact, he looked very angry, very focused, and he wasn't wearing swim trunks.

And he didn't stop in the locker room to change.

As I took him in, now I'm not 1 of these guys who's like, hey, I look at you and now I've judged you, but we do that, we do it, we do it, we all do it.

He was covered in what I cannot reference any better than prison style tattoos.

Now these aren't the tattoos you go down to a tattoo shop and they do all beautifully.

They're done with some homemade device and they have a certain look to them.

I have a couple of these from a past life and they look different than the others.

He had them all over him and he was wearing gang colors.

And he comes into the locker room and it's my group and an empty locker room.

And he walks right up to our group, and right through it, he could have walked anywhere.

God is great, because I'm like, I thought about how disrespectful that was, but also, who cares?

So we just, he went on and we started laughing, but Then it happened.

Sitting there in the locker room, we heard it.

We knew we didn't have to discuss, we didn't have to talk about it, we didn't have to figure it out.

We got up and we ran out of the locker room and we ran out of the locker room and we ran out of the building and we were in the parking lot when it hit me.

So I turned around And I looked at this building and I ran as fast as I could into the building and into the locker room, the women's locker room this time, screaming and yelling for my wife, Let's go, let's go.

We're on our way out the door, and it hits me that the lady at the counter where you check into the pool is just sitting there reading a magazine.

So I'm like, I go over to her and I'm like, what are you doing?

And she looks at me like I have lost my mind.

And I'm like, didn't you hear the noises?

And she's like, she thinks for a minute and then she says, oh, I know.

There's a room right over here next to the men's locker room where we store all the chairs.

Someone a few minutes ago just threw a chair up on top of them and they fell down.

It didn't happen and praise God it did not happen.

But at the time, that was when they were kicking off like all the time.

It's kind of like now, but we've kind of got used to it.

But then it was like, it was happening and it was always before our mind.

That's the area we were in, that would not have been weird if it had happened Gang shootings were a normal thing in that area and it wouldn't have been weird But it didn't happen and I praise God for that But I want to ask a question.

I was getting out of there and saving my own skin and I have a reputation for that.

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