What Would Jesus Do?

It was about five past midnight early last Sunday when the telephone rang awakening Doreen and me from our much needed sleep.  I managed to reach the phone in the office just before it switched over to the answer phone.  "Is that Barry Osborne?" said the voice on the other end.  I assured him it was and asked what I could do.  "You probably don't know me but I live in Yelvertoft", he went on.  Getting a call in the middle of the night from someone I probably don't know who lives in the village where my church is situated had me imagining bad news.  "We met at John Wale's funeral", he explained.  Now I was anticipating that someone had just died and, tired as I was, I already imagined I would soon be driving the 14 miles from Market Harborough to support someone suddenly bereaved.


But I was wrong.  Over the next few minutes I discovered that the man on the phone lived alone and was feeling incredibly low.  It seemed to him that nobody cared whether he lived or died.  He was really depressed.  Although his speech was clear I suspected he might have been drinking.  Sure enough he confessed he had already drunk too much but was not intending to drink any more that night.  Was he feeling that it might help if I travelled over immediately, I enquired, only to be assured that he did not see this as necessary.


It was about then that he realised how late it was and apologised for waking me.  I told him not to worry and that if he wanted to talk I would be glad to listen.  So for the next half hour Doreen lay in bed praying and listening to my half of the conversation while I teased his story out of him and tried to say all the right things.  At times like this with alcohol affecting the mind of the person  there was not much point in preaching at him.  My main concern was to be sure that he was not likely to do himself harm or anything stupid.  Slowly he became more rational, the depression clearly lifted as the presence of someone prepared to get out of bed and talk with him was counteracting how he had been feeling minutes before.  He even ended up telling me jokes!


Arriving at church a few hours later I found a nice note thanking me for being there for him and putting up with his bad jokes.  I would have rather seen him but the letter was certainly better than nothing.  I plan to get round to visit him.  He knows full well what I stand for and has heard me share the good news at John's funeral.  Will you pray for him please?  Sometimes, for some people, the good news starts with just knowing that someone cares and he has heard me say how much he is valued by God.  Who knows what God will do in his life!


Your prayers for Doreen will also be valued.  She has been quite unwell for the last 48 hours and so far medication given by the surgery has not had the desired affect.  It's not often she is ill and it's not good timing as we have a friend - her former pastor - staying with us for a few days.  He also needs to feel God's touch a he is still struggling to deal with feelings after losing his wife after several years of coping with Altzheimers.  So maybe it would be good to pray for Richard.  Come to that your prayers for me will be appreciated as I prepare for and then lead two services tomorrow.


"And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God" 2Cor 3:4/5.