Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. Psalm 77:18 NKJV

One year it almost never snowed, so as a contractor whose Winter income came from snow removal, I ended up working about six weeks in a warehouse among some pretty rough looking characters. I tried my best getting along, but those tattooed younger fellows, some of whom had nose rings and I had very little in common. As one of them put it, “Pete, did you ever wonder where all those guys who were sent to after school detention ended up working?” Now, I am the sort of person who tends to get cranked up over tattoos and nose rings, because the only critters with nose rings I knew were our hogs, so that they wouldn’t destroy their own pasture and tattoos were for the old guys who had been sailors in WW2. Yet, God didn’t seem to be as hung up as I was. Instead, He focused, not on how good or bad the other guys looked, but one whether I was telling them about Jesus.

As the weeks dragged by, I tried ignoring their less than wholesome jokes, and spent my lunch times, looking for a quiet corner to eat and read my New Testament. It didn’t seem even possible to talk to anyone about Jesus, till one day as we were emptying pallets from one of the trailers, the guy next to me earnestly asked in a whisper, “So what does hallelujah mean anyway?”  Rather than laughing, I delightedly did my best to explain and discovered that day, that God can give an opportunity at the most unexpected time to tell someone about His faithfulness and mercy. We just need to remind ourselves that God is delighted to accept some pretty strange characters into His family, because after all He sent Jesus to the cross to forgive, even me and you!

By the way, I loved this video about telling our grandchildren about the good old days Be sure to tell them that Jesus was the only thing good about some of those days!