Be fishers of men
Faith Fitness
Bro. Sam Kaufman
It was prayer that led us to Joel Wright.
Wright had a lot of fishing rods, but only a little time.
We had prayed that morning for God to direct us into people to whom we could minister. It was by no coincidence that we met Joel at Walmart that night.
He was the man pushing a cart filled with fishing rods. Immediately, that got our attention.
My boys and I went up to him to discuss the fishing rods. His response tugged at our hearts.
Joel told us he was eaten up with cancer and didn’t have long to live.
Basically, he was spending his money on things he wanted. He had gone through thousands of dollars that week on vehicles, gifts and other items.
When we met Joel, he had between 10 and 20 fishing rods in his cart.
I remembered our prayer from earlier about God leading us into people we could minister to. It quickly dawned on me that Joel was one of those people.
I had some Bible salvation tracts with me. Knowing that God led us to Joel, I gave him a tract on being born again.
He told me that a certain religious group had been visiting his home. I said, “Well, if they come by, can we come by, too?”
He said we could. Joel also jokingly said that if we came at the same time the others were there, we could fight it out.
The first time we visited his home, Joel wasn’t there. They told us he was at a nearby mechanic shop. So, we decided to go there.
We found Joel and went up to him in the parking lot. He was on the phone and didn’t even acknowledge us.
I thought it was pretty rude of him. “Should we just leave?” I asked myself. I figured we’d gone this far, so we should stick it out.
Eventually, he got off the phone and looked at me and my two boys. He remembered meeting us at Walmart.
Joel was the kind of person that a direct hit of Bible verses from the get-go could potentially not get us through the door with him. So we talked fishing. He enjoyed that and realized that we genuinely cared for him.
Through that, we had the in we were looking for. We asked him a lot of questions about fishing in that area. He soaked it up.
He seemed to really like the boys, who are 13 and 15.
He told me he wasn’t ready at that point to begin focusing on God, but that he would be.
We prayed for him and had the church pray for him. We visited him and talked fishing with him. He wanted to set up times we could actually fish together.
Unfortunately, those fishing outings never materialized. Joel gave the boys a bunch of lures and other fishing stuff.
We visited him another time, and I was able to give him a Bible tract. I thought that of all his possessions that he recently purchased, the words contained in the tract I gave him were much more valuable.
Those words were the way to eternal life. We prayed for Joel daily. We received a call a couple of weeks ago from his family. They said they had been trying to get a hold of us for a few days.
Joel’s condition had worsened and doctors were giving him just 72 hours to live.
We visited his house the next two days. I shared the gospel with him and prayed, though he was in a state where he couldn’t talk much.
I contemplated that Joel’s existence was here in the world, but the time of his departure from this earth was imminently close at hand. He was about ready to go to one of two places – to be with the Lord, or to Hell.
I prayed that God would allow him to hear me, and I had hoped he read the tracts, repented of his sin and accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior for forgiveness of sins.
The next call I received from his family was that Joel died on a Wednesday night at about 8:30 p.m.
That was right after I preached a message at church that night regarding Joel’s condition and how eternity awaited.
