A Tale of Two Joes.

I have to be either the luckiest man in the city of Chicago, or just the most available one for whenever God needs someone to "be there."

In the last two weeks, two really neat men both named Joe have entered my life for completely different reasons...but in some ways, for the same reasons.

Joe #1 showed up at my office one morning, as a walk-in client/prospective student. He came in, broke into tears, telling me how his parents had died a couple of years ago, and how he himself needs to get some training, so he can start a career. He was/is a very emotionally broken and needy man...and God sent him to me for a reason. He confessed how he is terribly lonely, and that he sees no real reason for living. He's afraid to end his own life, but can't find alot of reasons for living.

He wants to find "a family"...friends, people that he can trust. He is going to Sunday Morning Worship with me tomorrow morning. I'm asking the Lord to profoundly touch his life as only HE can touch it.

Joe #2, showed up at the Chicago Tabernacle a couple of weeks ago. It was about ten minutes before the Morning Worship service was to formally begin, and I looked back, noticing a new person sitting on the next to the last pew. I went back, introduced myself, and invited him to join me nearer the front of the sanctuary. His story in a nutshell is that he came to Christ about five years ago...was raised in a nominal religious environment, but never encountered the Saving Power of Christ until his junior year at Illinois Wesleyan University. He has been looking for a church like the "Brooklyn Tab" (our mother congregation), and someone in New York told him how to find us. He is starting to get "plugged in." I have assured him that he has "family" in this church now...and that we will always be there for him...no matter what!

God just knows how to bring folks my way...or at least that's what I'm discerning.

I could be wrong.

But I don't think so...at least, not this time.