{"id":19919,"date":"2020-03-22T17:35:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T22:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/?p=19919"},"modified":"2020-03-22T17:37:24","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T22:37:24","slug":"have-you-ever-been-arrested-did-anyone-pray-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/have-you-ever-been-arrested-did-anyone-pray-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Have you ever been arrested? Did anyone pray for you?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Remember the prisoners as if chained with them…. (Hebrews 13:3)\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
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Most of what follows was taken from my journal of January 13, 1998.<\/i><\/div>\n
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<\/i>This was my morning radio program (\u201cPhone Call from the Pastor,\u201d Lifesongs 89.1 FM.\u00a0 Christian radio station in New Orleans)\u2026.<\/p>\n

Have you ever been arrested? Imagine the devastating impact on your family.<\/p>\n

Last night the television news showed the arrest of a fellow on the Northshore for the murder of a convenience store clerk several years ago.\u00a0 In handcuffs, he was being escorted into jail by a couple of sheriff\u2019s deputies.<\/p>\n

As he passed the camera, the man paused, stared into it and said, \u201cPray for me.\u00a0 And pray for my family.\u201d\u00a0 I confess to being shocked. I mean, he was a fairly rough-looking man\u2013the word \u2018burly\u2019 comes to mind\u2013and I was expecting anything but that.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It touched my heart.<\/p>\n

Now, I have no knowledge about this case.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have a clue as to his guilt or innocence. But as a result of his simple request, I have prayed for him and his family several times.<\/p>\n

Whether or not he committed the murder, he still needs our prayers. And in either case, his family is devastated and needs God\u2019s help.<\/p>\n

Last Friday night, walking into a local supermarket I noticed a couple of police cars near the front door. As I approached, the doors\u00a0opened and the police escorted out a lady in handcuffs.\u00a0 The shocking thing was that she was an employee of the store, still wearing her checker uniform.\u00a0 I thought, \u2018How embarrassing this must be for her.\u2019\u00a0 And I prayed for her.<\/p>\n

Scripture tells us to \u201cRemember the prisoners as though you were in prison with them\u201d (Hebrews 13:3).<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been arrested, but friends have.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Keith, a pastor friend, was hauled out of his church in handcuffs and made a spectacle on the evening news in a major city.\u00a0 Some mother was accusing him of child molestation, involving little ones in the preschool program.\u00a0 The pastor insisted he had no contact with anyone in that program, but he was arrested. Several things happened in quick succession.<\/p>\n

Church members who were prone to believe the worst ganged up on their pastor.\u00a0 Members of the public who hold to the philosophy that \u201cchildren don\u2019t lie about these things\u201d wanted to lynch him.\u00a0 And he was quickly out of a job.\u00a0 Yet, he had not gone to court yet.<\/p>\n

Eventually, investigators decided that there was not a word of truth to the allegations and the charges were dropped.\u00a0 But the damage\u00a0had been\u00a0done.<\/p>\n

His reputation was ruined.\u00a0A lot of so-called friends judged him guilty.<\/p>\n

Later, he wrote a book about the experience with the haunting title of \u201cGuilty\u2013Until Proven Innocent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere there\u2019s smoke, there\u2019s fire.\u201d\u00a0 Oh?\u00a0 Not always.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friend Bob was dismissed from\u00a0the\u00a0First Church of Lodebar after a number of difficult years.\u00a0 The pastor before him had been forced out also.\u00a0 My opinion was that no one could have pastored that church due to the changing neighborhood, the entrenched leadership,\u00a0the unrealistic expectations of the membership, and the declining resources.\u00a0 Nevertheless, it appeared the members still lived in the past and had the notion that if only the right pastor were in place, the glory days of the 1960s would be restored.<\/p>\n

There was no scandal in Bob\u2019s leaving that church.\u00a0 He\u2019s a good man with a sweet spirit and humble heart.\u00a0 After financial support from that church ended, Bob began to\u00a0face the sad fact that most pastor search committees\u00a0work from fear rather than faith, that they are so frightened of making a mistake they will not go outside the box and do something which might get them criticized.<\/p>\n

One church committee took a chance and met with Bob. They heard him preach and interviewed him more than once. From what I hear, they liked everything they saw and heard. However, when they talked with leaders of the Lodebar church, what they heard was innuendo and insinuation.\u00a0 When the search committee chairman ended the relationship, all he would tell Bob was they had decided \u201cwhere there is smoke, there\u2019s fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judging without evidence. Condemning a good man to irrelevance.<\/p>\n

Last I heard, Bob is doing secular work to support his family.\u00a0 Had the Lodebar church had him arrested and charged with child molestation before television cameras, they could not have done a more complete job of ending his ministry.<\/p>\n

Not everyone living in prison is behind bars.<\/p>\n

When the Lord calls to mind someone in trouble, let us lift them to the Father and ask Him to take charge, to bless them with whatever they need, and to bring about good from this bad situation.<\/p>\n

You will not learn until Heaven what God does with your prayers.<\/p>\n

I hope that\u2019s all right.\u00a0 \u201cWe walk by faith, not by sight\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:7).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember the prisoners as if chained with them…. (Hebrews 13:3)\u00a0 Most of what follows was taken from my journal of January 13, 1998. This was my morning radio program (\u201cPhone Call from the Pastor,\u201d Lifesongs 89.1 FM.\u00a0 Christian radio station … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19919"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19939,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19919\/revisions\/19939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/joemckeever.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}