Before Covid 19 (March 2020) I was getting in some late night study at a fast food restaurant.  I sat down from a young African American/Spanish woman and her two year old son.  I got into a conversation about Jesus with one of the employees at the restaurant.  The young woman overheard, and when the conversation was over, she commented and a new conversation resulted.  We will refer to this woman as “Defender.”  Defender and the little boy’s father are separated right now, she is scared and doesn’t know what the future has in store for them and their child.  Defender would do anything for her little boy.  She is truly a loving parent.  She told me she has been in and out of church her whole life, but couldn’t present any evidence of a relationship with Jesus.  I asked, if you were to leave here right now and die in an accident, where would you go; heaven or hell?  She said with concern, “I honestly don’t know.”  There was no assurance in her walk, no consistency in her “practice of religion,” and – when we got right down to it – no salvation experience to speak of.  She had no relational connection to Jesus Christ, only a religious philosophical concept of who He is.  We discussed John chapter 14, no other way to the Father except through Jesus’ sacrifice, repentance and forgiveness.  At that point she asked to receive Jesus.  Both she and her two-year old son held my hands and we prayed her into the kingdom.  Defender left that restaurant confident in her relationship with Jesus, faith in something real, and a spiritual connection to the Righteous Judge of the heavens and the earth.

Troy A. McDaniel * The Truth Project