It was the last day of my fast. As usual my flesh wasn't at all keen to abstain from eating since I like food , but I have learnt when God tells me to do something, I better just obey , like it or not. In the morning, I did something I hadn't done for a long while. I think I have grown so used to praying my "usual" prayers , God must have yawned ho-hum as He hears me day in day out. But that day, I wanted my fast to end on a bang, so I prayed an audacious prayer.
It was a Saturday; I would be going down to KL as usual for the street-ministry I am involved in since 20 years ago. My usual prayer is Lord, You bring the people, You save them. But that Saturday, I prayed, God, give me 1 soul today. It certainly wasn't anything like the passionate cry of John Knox "Give me Scotland, or I die!" that ignited the Scottish reformation back in the 16th Century. I uttered the prayer, because I suddenly realized it had really been a long time since someone from the street said yes to my sharing. As I recall the last street-friend who opened his heart to the Jesus I was sharing about was a foreigner who has since returned to his home-land. And that was years before Covid.
I drove down to KL in prayer-mode. There weren't that many people who had come into the parking-lot where we hold our usual Saturday food-distribution. The old faces were there, and I saw a couple of new ones. There was an empty chair beside one, so I just plopped myself down beside the man and started talking...about Jesus (what else). He said he believed all gods, all religions. (Just like me, once upon a long time ago) He had even gone overseas on a religious pilgrimage, but although he participated in all the rituals, he felt nothing in his life changed. I liked that he wasn't shy to engage; he asked me to clarify about sin, why Jesus is different. He questioned my testimony of how my late husband and I came to believe in Jesus at the lowest point in our lives then, face-to-face with cancer and death.
We talked as he ate the food distributed. I noticed his right hand hung limp by his side, so I asked what happened. Apparently it became paralyzed as a result of a car hitting his motorbike when he was young. So he had learnt to use his left hand adeptly, and had been working several jobs in the past. That started the ball really rolling as he told of how he witnessed his mother's dying moments in 2019 , how everything in his life went "downhill" from that point on. The worst happened just 3 weeks ago in December 2025, when someone stole his wallet containing his IC, passport, money, everything. He showed me his police report.
I asked him how he knew about our street-work. He said he actually didn't know but someone from the street brought him all the way right into the parking lot. And then he revealed something astonishing. He said before that, he had prayed God send someone to help him. That was when it all "clicked" for me. I told him I had prayed for 1 soul for Jesus. We looked at each other, as it sank into us that a miracle had happened. God had answered his prayer and mine - together. Without the human-angel who personally walked him to this place, without me taking the empty chair next to him (even though there were other empty chairs and other new faces around), he would not have heard about the God who is different from all other religions; the One who came from heaven, incarnated as a human, to die on the cross , taking all the sins of mankind, bearing our punishment, so that all can be saved from hell's fire . He would never have known that Jesus loves him so much as to arrange everything so perfectly for us - 2 strangers - to meet in his most desperate moments.
And then came the "clincher" - he asked me, "So how now, what do I have to do?" Not coincidentally, the Pastor had just shared about how ordinary people can be used by an extraordinary God if only we would repent and believe in Jesus. So it was after 7 years of going downhill , in this 8th year (biblically 8 represents a new beginning) , most timely indeed, this man stepped up and out into a new life, as he willingly readily accepted Jesus in a parking-lot. As I prayed for him, to be healed of the hurts he had experienced , especially of the loss of his beloved mom, he teared up. He said he hadn't cried since his mother died. We both knew that was the release he needed.
" Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever "(Hebrews 13:8), the One who "saves to the uttermost those who come to God through Him" (Hebrews 7:25)
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