Those Who Fear God

But God                                              

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins…indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath…But God…” Ephesians 2:1, 3b, 4a (NASB) 

 “A man named Bud will be calling you to ask about becoming a Christian.” With these words my husband’s friend Brian began explaining a strange situation. Brian was a lay pastor at an inner city church until he moved to another state upon getting married. When Brian had not been pastoring, he owned a small lawn company. Because he lived in an apartment above the church, he had kept some of his lawn equipment stored on a vacant lot next to the church.
  

Bud was a housing inspector for government housing and property, which the vacant lot happened to be. He called Brian to ask about the equipment that had not yet been moved, but after learning Brian was a pastor, Bud told of a Bible he found in an apartment he was cleaning. Bud said, “I usually throw out the things I find when I inspect places, but this was a Bible, and you know, you just can’t throw away a Bible. So I started to read it but I do not understand it at all.”

Brian explained that he no longer lived in town. He gave Bud my husband’s name and number as someone who would follow up and explain the Bible to him. Thus began my husband’s ministry with Bud, a man with a checkered past. Bud was a man who was dead in trespasses and sins; a child of wrath. He would have died that way…but God placed a Bible in an abandoned government apartment.
 

We all have a “But God” story, don’t we? What is yours? Each story is different but in each case we were children of wrath but for God!