God and Eric...and what I'm learning from it all.

Okay, so it's been a long time since I last blogged. Actually its been too long. I fell out of the blogging world in the summer when Mandy started blogging more on our adoption of Levi. With all that surrounded the adoption of Levi and our impending trip to Ethiopia, I kind of put my own personal blogging on hold, and now is the time I shall resume expressing my personal thoughts, opinions and life lessons in the "blogosphere". So, I thought I'd share some thoughts and lessons from a new friend that I have. His name is Eric.

I met Eric at the beginning of the summer and soon realized that this brand new follower of Jesus had tremendous potential but desperately needed to get grounded in this new faith that he had in Jesus Christ. Eric has a past, which I won't go into, but let's just say that he has been restored by the grace of God and gripped by the mission of God. Eric is a brand new creation. Eric is incarnating the powerful reality the Apostle Paul penned in 2 Corinthians 5:17. His life was once devoted to drugs, loneliness and self-destruction and is now captured by God and His incredible love. It's been amazing to see the changes God has brought about in Eric's life.

A couple of weekends ago, Eric accompanied me on a road trip to Savannah, Georgia to help a friend of mine move. We left late on a Thursday night and drove through the night. Eric had never been on this type of "road trip", where the goal was to simply help a friend. While we were driving on I-77 in southern Ohio, Eric and I were talking about how it's often difficult to love people. Eric asked me, "Paul, have you ever found it difficult to love people?" I assured him that there have been countless times that my love for others has been less than perfect, in fact, sometimes my love for others has been quite pathetic. I find myself often not loving the way Jesus wants me to love. As Eric and I discussed more, Eric said, "I want to have more of a love for people...for people who are hurting." Eric expressed a desire to help people and offer the very hope and salvation that he had received. It was around 1:00am and I found myself thanking God for this brand new Christ-follower and his longing to have Christ's love flow through him into the lives of those that needed it most.

We continued to drive and discuss, until Eric said, "Paul, u gotta' stop. That transport truck on the side of the road is flipped over." I gathered my thoughts, waited for the next exit, turned off and proceeded to go back towards the flipped over transport truck. As we approached the transport truck, it became obvious that this was a serious accident. There were no police or EMT on the scene yet, so besides one other guy, we were the only ones on the scene. Before I could pull our mini-van over on the shoulder of the dark interstate, Eric darted out of our vehicle and ran towards the demolished transport truck. As I got out of the van, I saw a body that looked lifeless lying right beside the shattered window of the truck. It was obvious that this truck driver was ejected from the front window of his truck.

It was dark but this didn't keep Eric from kneeling right before the truck driver and he reached down by his neck to check for a pulse...and YES, he was alive. Eric asked the truck drivers name, and it was Paul. For the next 5 minutes until EMT arrived, Eric took care of Paul. Paul's head was badly bleeding and it was obvious that he had some dislocated and broken body parts as there was bone exposed in the arm area. It did not look good for Paul. Eric got his own jacket and wrapped it around Paul's lacerated head so that the bleeding would subside. Eric kept the attention of Paul as he drifted in and out of consciousness. Eric was right there with truck driver Paul, showing him the affection and care that he just admitted five minutes earlier that he desperately wanted in his life. The EMT arrived, we briefed the state trooper and the medical workers, and then Paul was rushed into the ambulance. We sensed that we were no longer needed, so we made our way back to our van and continued on our road trip.

Following a stop at the nearest rest area to wash the blood off of Eric's hands from the accident, we re-counted what just happened. As we talked about truck driver Paul and this unfortunate accident that we just witnessed, Eric said "Hey, we gotta' pray for Paul". Eric prayed and I agreed as we prayed in our moving vehicle on I-77 in southern Ohio. I reminded Eric what we had just been talking about before we came upon the flipped over transport truck. Eric wanted to have a love for people. Eric wanted to help people. Eric wanted to express love and grace to those people that needed it the most. Eric realized what God was doing, and so did I. Eric had just loved in a very selfless way. He got down on his knees, gave up his own coat and got his hands bloody as he checked the pulse of this poor, broken and injured truck driver. This was love. This was Jesus making a difference in the life of Eric. This was life-change!!!

I'm thankful for the lesson Eric taught me on that late night on I-77 just north of Marietta, Ohio. Eric embodied the very truth that Jesus illustrated in Luke 10. The parable of the Good Samaritan says that while the religious people walked by the beaten, robbed and half dead man, the Samaritan STOPPED and paid attention when others were too busy or too ignorant to stop. It says in scripture that when the Samaritan came upon the man laying on the road, "he took pity on him". This same pity that Jesus described I saw in my friend Eric as he approached the truck driver, cradled his bloody head with his jacket and then patiently waited with him until help came. This is love. This is the love Jesus wants from me. Lord, help me love like this. Help me to take the time to STOP. When I see a need, whether a truck driver ejected from his cab, a homeless man or a hurting teenager, I want to have love. Lord, help me to slow down, see the need and then be filled with compassion and moved towards action. I want to live like this.

Thanks for the lesson Eric!