My Friend Jerry

God is always with us and always for us. He never has and never will abandon us. You know that, right? But I’ll bet that most of you, like me, have had times…maybe even right now…when that truth doesn’t ring true.

You don’t see him with you.
You don’t feel like he’s for you.
You feel abandoned.
You feel alone.

How is it that we can know one thing and feel so differently?

I want to tell you about my friend Jerry. He understood all of those feelings, and still knew the truth that God was always with him.

My friend Jerry is in heaven now; but his story is ongoing. It has a huge continuing impact on me, and I think it just might impact you too. He is worth knowing -- his life, his character, and his God.

Jerry's life was filled with heartache and much loneliness. He grew up in the inner city. He had to go to work at an early age, doing what he could on the streets.

His family didn’t want anything to do with him because he marched to a different drummer. He was misunderstood.

Jerry spent time in prison. He was beaten and had bones broken. When he wasn’t in prison, he lived with whoever would take him in. He did have people who helped him. A man literally pulled him out of a muddy, unused city water cistern his enemies had thrown him in and left him for dead.

Jerry was outspoken and rejected for what he would say -- but he said it anyway. He would stand in public places and warn people about evil. People thought he was crazy. He wasn’t.

Jerry would get upset and depressed when he saw people who did bad things seem to prosper with to have families and money and homes. He didn’t understand that.

He was a writer, and his handwritten manuscripts were his only possession of value. But those who thought he was crazy took his writings and burned them. Jerry started over and wrote again.

One time, he was offered a chance to leave the inner city for a better life. He said, “No,” because he had chosen to live the life he was living, which was calling out to the people on the streets to change their ways... to turn away from the evil in the world -- the greed, the selfishness, the violence, and the destruction sin brings. They never responded.

Jerry never married or fathered a child.

He witnessed his city -- the city he fought for -- burn to the ground.

He spent his life with a couple of friends and a few kind strangers, but mostly alone... EXCEPT…………………Except that God was with him -- on every street corner, in every prison, with every step, in every breath, and that makes all the difference.

My friend Jerry is the prophet Jeremiah in the Old Testament of the Bible. He lived more than 2,500 years ago -- but that was his life. Maybe you can identify with parts of it.

I can.

Come back, there's sooooo much more.