One night at 2 AM I was downtown knocking out rides when the app pulled me out to the airport to pick up a man. I needed to take him 55 minutes south. It was a Thursday night because it was busy. I wanted to stay downtown longer but rather than fight it I just said, fair enough and started heading to the airport. Just as soon as I had that thought and started going I got the prompting we would be talking about the gospel.
When I got to the airport the man got in the car and we headed off. He was coming home from a business trip where he got some kind of training for manufacturers. The conversation was all about what he did. Then I asked him why he didn’t have his wife come pick him up at 2 AM and he laughed hysterically he could tell in my face that the suggestion of his wife getting him was a joke all along. I said that wouldn’t go over well would it! He said no.
When we talked at first he implied that he wasn’t a member of the church. He didn’t do this as a direct answer to a question but through various statements he made.
He and his wife had two young children and they were in bed and his wife was as well. We headed out to Spanish Fork. I remembered again that I had the impression to talk to this man who seemed to be a really nice man who had a tremendous weight on his shoulders. It almost seemed like he wanted to be active in the church or that he felt something that turned the light on inside of him.
I saw this as a sign that he was ready to get going. I started asking him about his wife and his family. He talked a lot about his father who was a very religious and devout man. He almost spoke as if his father was that overbearing authoritarian type. Then he just changed it up and talked about how his father had the most precise and heartfelt way of looking at things. He always said things just right.
I didn’t believe him when he indicated that he was not he was a member of the church for some reason. It didn’t feel right. I knew that he grew up with his dad in the Navy and they had been all over the world. I knew that he had gotten a girlfriend pregnant when he was very young and not even known about it for about 12 years. The mother had appeared suddenly and said, this is your daughter give me child support.
He talked about how that was hard for his wife and his kids at first but his dad really helped him move that through. We talked about the challenges of life and faith. He talked about integrating his 12-year-old daughter into the life of his family without disrupting everything and threatening his current family in the process.
I talked about how important it would be to have Jesus Christ as a centerpiece of anything you were doing and grab onto the atonement. When I started talking about the atonement he started warming up big-time. The spirit came in the car and I could tell he felt it. I talked about how Jesus had suffered not because he had to, and not until he couldn’t suffer anymore, but he suffered for us until it was done. It went far past what any man could do because he was a God and he loved us with the perfect love and power of a god
The spirit opened up to me seeing this guy being someone who had been judged and hurt and leaving the church. He seemed to be having a tremendous amount of regret over the whole situation.
I saw him as a member of the church and maybe a returned missionary. I perceived that his father was a good member of the church as well. I started talking to him as if he had told me that he was a member of the church following the prompting the spirit had given me.
With this knowledge I said, a lot of times in church we have people that we think are judging us. They say things or they do things to make us feel bad or make us feel uncomfortable. What the natural man or Satan would have us do is turn against God. What God would have us do is turn to Jesus for the lifting of our burdens through the power of his atonement.
I told him I felt like that was him. I told him I felt like he had been offended at our church. I felt like someone had said something and it really bothered him. He told me about going to the store to get some formula for their baby. He there was a mother pointing at him while talking to her little son about what horrible people bikers are. He happened to have a beard and a mustache and be riding a motorcycle wearing his motorcycle gear at the time.
He knew that woman from church and it hurt him that she would say that. I asked him if he knew that Satan whispers in everybody’s ears? I told him that Satan whispered in his ears all the time about not being worthy, about not going to church, about people judging you at church and saying that you shouldn’t be there. He told me that’s true, that he hears that in his head and it makes him not want to be around those people.
I asked him if he wanted people to be tolerant of his sins and love him despite the sins and help him along and he said, yes. I told him that judging is their sin. Making judgments about other people is their weakness. I asked him if he thought maybe he should be tolerant and loving of them in their sin. He thought for a second and said, I never thought about it that way.
I told him that the thing about the atonement is that Jesus has enough for everyone and he fills us all up with his love regardless of what point we find ourselves, if we will look to him. I told him that we need to quit looking to other people and allowing them to affect us.
He said to me that he was a returned missionary that he had served a mission to florida. He said that his wife had a horrible experience when she went through the temple and that she had quit going to church because of it. Subsequently he quit going to church along with his wife.
He said it was like his whole family was on a pedestal and everyone was judging them and it was just too much to bear. I told him that Jesus felt that embarrassment, that pain and that injustice as well. I shared with him stories of people I know that have been through what his wife has been through. These people had similar experiences and were affected in such a way that they didn’t know how to deal with it. Not going back to the temple and sometimes leaving the church followed.
I asked him what he thought the difference was between the successful ones who stayed in the church and went back to the temple and those who stayed away. He said he didn’t know. I told him that they read their scriptures and said their prayers.
I felt to tell him that reading scriptures and saying prayers is really important and that it is one of the things that the successful people do when they have challenges. They hang on to those things. They keep going to church even though it’s hard because they learn that it’s about their relationship with God and not their relationship with their ward members that matters.
I asked him if he was surprised about how the conversation we had experienced hit point by point the things that were concerning to him and he said yes I told him that I knew these things because of the spirit. I told him the spirit had spoken to my heart and gave me those things to say. I happened because God needed him back.
I told him that if we listen to the spirit and say the words the Lord puts into our heart, our missions don’t end when we get home from serving for two years. God will put people in our lives for us to testify to and he’ll give us the words to say. I told him the Lord had put him in my car and given me those words tonight. I told him it happened because God wanted him and his family back and that he loved them. I also told him that God expected him to start to pray and read the scriptures.
I felt a prompting to bear my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I bore that simple testimony but I felt the power in my words. I knew he felt it too. I asked him if he recognized the spirit and he said yes. I told him that the spirit that he was feeling was the love of his father in heaven and that it testified to him of truth. He said, yes, I know that but it’s been so long since I felt like this.
I could see the wheels turning in his mind. This was a returned missionary who had been a good missionary and he knew exactly what was happening. Right then I had the impression to say, the Lord let me perceive the thoughts in your heart right there in that moment. Right now you’re thinking about your patriarchal blessings because in your patriarchal blessing you were given the spiritual gifts necessary to deal with the crisis that your family and you are going through right now.
I told him to read his patriarchal blessing and become worthy to exercise the spiritual gifts like a weapon to defend his family. He said, wow! You could not have been more right on this whole trip. I told him it wasn’t me. I told him that the Lord wanted him back.
I told him that the Lord knew that he would go through this and gave him those blessings and gifts of the spirit for this day and this battle. He said, that is exactly right.
I told him that he needed to go to church and asked him if he would and he said yes. I told him that he needed to read the scriptures and pray with his family and if he would I promised him that his family would eventually come with him. I told him that they would eventually come to church with him if he would do this in a loving way.
I told him he would have to rely on the atonement of the Savior and the word of God but if he would have that faith, God would give him that blessing. The spirit of God was very powerful in the car and he felt it. His face was glowing.
I asked, would you like me to pray for you? He said he would love for me to pray for him, right now! He said that the spirit had been so strong in the car and the word of God so clear to his mind. He wanted me to pray for him right there in the car. I said OK. I bowed my head and prayed the words that came into my heart. During that prayer I saw in my mind the things unfold that this young man really wanted.
Heather is concerned that you might think I was driving at the time. We had arrived at his home and we were parked out in front of his house.
I saw him and his family at church. I prayed and I asked God to give him the strength and the faith to lead his family to that point so they could feel the power of God in their lives.
When we finished the prayer he was crying and he shook my hand for about a minute. He told me that he could’t have ever imagined something like this would’ve happened today. He told me that several drivers had declined him and that he almost gave up. He thought he would have to sleep at the airport but he gave it one last shot. That’s when I accepted the ride. God knows what he’s doing and he sent him a ride so that he could touch this young man and save his family. It was an amazing experience.
Sometimes God sends you a lift 