Trevor Berg Writing

I preached on grace one Sunday, later that week, the guys got together and discussed the idea of grace.  The leader of the discussion said that he talked long, hard and earnestly about how we are imperfect and need so much grace, and how others are the same and need our grace.

So at the end of it all, once he figured he had gotten his point across, he decided to ask the following question:

“So, when you stand at the gates of heaven, what will you tell Jesus?”

The first guy, a man who has faced much criticism and hurt, people who don’t believe in him and people who call him down, he said, “I would say, Jesus, you are perfect, but I am almost perfect.”

Next was, a tough, muscular young man, a former drug dealer, “I would tell him, ‘Jesus, I don’t want to go into heaven, I want to stay on earth and fight evil!'”

When John told me this I couldn’t help but laugh.  Here we are, banging our heads against the wall explaining grace…and…one thinks he doesn’t need grace…the other wants to punish sinners…WOW, we are good teachers!

I was sitting down at the Youth in the Kitchen event and was chatting with my table about life and such and it came up that I had a fire at my house about 1 year earlier.  “Jennifer”, who had not been really engaged in the conversation all of the sudden perked up.  “You had a fire at your house?” she asked. I explained how I had, and told a bit of the story…perhaps trying to gain a little sympathy, or at least a bit of camaraderie as in, “I understand what it’s like to not have much.”  When I finally stopped talking, she said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“I had a fire at my place too.”

“Really?! When?”

“A couple months ago.”

She said this with very little emotion.  I asked some questions about it, and eventually I said, “did you have any insurance?”

“No.”

“Did any friends or family come around you to help you out?”

“No.”

My heart hurt for this young girl, and her family.  She had just gone through what I had barely made it through…except I had a very supportive family, a church that cared deeply about us, friends who made it their priority to help us out, and INSURANCE that replaced everything we owned!

I didn’t know what to say, I’m sure I mumbled something like, “I’m sorry,” but I had no clue what to do or say after that.

That evening I was driving one of the leaders home after the evening.  He said he knew this young guy who got in trouble with the law and the police had taken his shoes.  So now he was wondering around in the winter with no shoes, “he has flip flops,” he said.

I couldn’t believe it! How could he not have shoes in this kind of weather.  He asked me if I knew anyone that could help him out with some shoes.  I told him that maybe I could.  I explained how we had insurance on a lot of shoes (we had a whole bunch in a box that we were about to take to Value Village to give away – but insurance replaces those too) that we could replace, but didn’t really need.  I said I would see if I could pick him up some shoes that would fit him.

I went to the store to find some shoes picked them up and brought them to this worker.  I asked him about the boy who would receive them.

“Actually, he is Jennifer’s sister.”

My heart stopped for a minute.  Here it was, a family who lost everything in a fire, and didn’t have insurance to replace it, and was in need at the moment, in that moment, God orchestrated it so that my insurance would replace some of their shoes.