taken verbatim from James Robison’s book “Living Amazed: How Divine Encounters Can Change Your Life” Pages 16-19.
Later that fall, Betty and I went up to the retreat property again. We were sitting out back enjoying the scenery one afternoon when a man in a suit and tie came walking up through the brush. He must have crawled over a barbed wire fence to get in to the property, because the gate at the road was locked. But, there he was.
He introduced himself as Max Copeland and said, “I know this may sound crazy to you, but I’m the pastor of First Baptist Church in Marble Falls, and a few months ago we lost one of our football players. The day he died, every kid in the church who could get a hold of me called to say they weren’t coming back to church anymore, because they had been praying for God to save their friend’s life, and he had died. I mean, their faith was totally devastated.
“But the following Sunday, they were all there in the pews, and they told me about a man who had stopped at the convenience store and shared Jesus with them.
“James, I want you to know that I baptized twenty young people who had accepted Christ in that parking lot after you left. Other kids who had pulled away from God are now on fire for Him. We are experiencing a revival in our town because of this.”
“That is truly amazing,” I said.
“I wonder if you’d be willing to come back and preach to us sometime,” the pastor said.
I told him we were planning to come back and do some hunting soon.
“We have a big barn out in the country where folks could gather. Would you be willing to preach in a barn?”
“I’ll preach anywhere.”
After agreeing that Betty and I would come, I asked him, “How did these kids know who I was? I never told them.”
“I put up a poster about a revival in Austin, in case some of our people wanted to go. The kids saw it and came into my office and said, ‘You see that man in the picture on the poster? He’s the one who stopped and talked to us in the parking lot.”
Several of those young people were the ones who had spoken to me at the revival.
When Betty and I went back to Marble Falls in December, we drove outside of town about fifteen miles, along some country roads, until we found the barn. When we arrived, there were cars everywhere, and a thousand people inside the barn. The population of Marble Falls at the time was only about fifteen hundred, but a thousand of them had come to hear me preach.
When I gave the invitation that night, ninety – nine people came to hear me preach. I remember the exact number because Betty and I were laughing in the car afterward that I almost asked her to come forward so we could get an even hundred.
Brother Max invited us back again the next summer, and we did a three-night crusade at the high school football stadium, where another 176 people made the decision to accept Christ. Out of that parking lot conversation with thirty or forty high school kids, 275 people had now come to Christ.
But the story doesn’t end there.
A few years later, at a crusade in Orland, Florida, a woman approached me after one of the meetings and told me that her daughter had been at that convenience store parking lot in Marble Falls. She had not been a Christian at the time, but with everything that happened afterward, she had come to Christ and had become a beautiful witness for Him. Recently, though, she had been killed in an automobile accident. Although her mother was grieving her loss, she wanted to thank me because she knew that her daughter was in heaven, and she knew that the turning point had been that night outside the market.
When I stopped at the convenience store for chocolate milk that evening, I had no idea what I would find there. And the kids to whom I had spoken had no idea who I was. They didn’t know I was a preacher. I was just some guy that looked like a bum and had a heart for the Lord. And when the Holy Spirit spoke to me, and told me what I needed to say to those grieving kids, I had all the following usual excuses lined up and ready to go.
It’s late, I’m tired. My family’s tired. I’m busy. I need to get home. And even if I could get those kids together long enough to talk with them, why would they listen to me anyway?
But here’s the point of all this: What I did that night could be done by anyone with a heart yielded to God. All it took was being available, been willing, and being obedient to the call. And the result was living amazed.
Early in 2015, I called the church in Marble Falls to see if Brother Maxwell was still around. Indeed, he was, as pastor emeritus. It had been almost fifty years, but he still remembered me. He said he would never forget the day he climbed over a barbed wire fence to come find me, because a brief encounter at a convenience store parking lot had turned his entire town inside out. That’s what living amazed is all about.
Just a few months after I last spoke to him, Max Copeland went to be with the Lord at the age of eighty-five, after sixty-nine years of ministry, including fifty-seven years in Marble Falls. What distinguished his ministry in the minds of all who knew him was his genuine, steadfast love for other people. That’s something we all can emulate.
What the Bible says about LIVING AMAZED
After the demon was cast out, the mute man spoke; and the crowds were amazed. Matthew 9:33
Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. Acts 4: 13
“it could have been done by anyone with a heart yielded to God!! All it took was being available, being willing, and being obedient to the call.”
Go Forth yielded, available, willing & obedient… while you’re able! >>>>> merlin