The Man in the Market

The Man in the Market

I saw a man just now that I knew years ago at a job I had.  I thought it was him but since I wasn’t sure, I didn’t say anything.  He looked at me with a familiar smile as if to say “Oh, hey! It is good to see you.” But he walked out the door leaving me to ask my questions to the clerk that new him. 

My memories of this man are sweet.  He was a precious man with a good heart and I was reminded of that in this brief passing.  He at one time stood in my booth and as tears rolled down his face said, “I have done too much. I am too bad.  God could never forgive someone like me.”

Those words break my heart even now in repeating them.  God can and does forgive. He LOVES to forgive! That is why he says 70 times 7 in his instructions to how many times we should forgive, which if you didn’t know actually means continuously.  What I wish I could have expressed that day to this man is how amazingly BIG God is and that his sins have already been paid.  All he needed to do was accept it.

It is easy even as a believer to get caught up in the lies of “you are not good enough”; “God does not love you”; or “you’ll never be accepted let alone loved.”  But they are just that – LIES!  God does love you, and He is more than big enough to take on whatever you have done.  In fact He already has.  All you have to do is accept Him and without a doubt you will begin to love him in a way that you never knew.

I pray that this man’s life was changed.  I pray that somewhere between our conversation and tonight he found life and found it abundantly!  Who knows maybe that was the real reason behind the smile he gave as he walked away.