I'm liking Shawn Bolz's stuff, on many levels. I particularly like focus on relational and emotional intelligence.
Here's a page out of his book - posted for my friend Will, since we were talking about how to reach the messed up kids in the school we both worked/work in.
Notice the method with the girl he prays for - she "loans" his faith and gets the revelatory word herself.
I was in Hawaii in 2012. The condo I stayed at was beautiful, but its entrance was very close to the area’s late night red light district. It was one block away from the main strip of Honolulu. I was hungry, and the only thing that was open after 10:30 when I got dropped off was a sub sandwich shop, so I headed there. It was a safe but seedy area after 10 p.m.
On the way, a Hawaiian in his young twenties tapped my arm and said, “Hey brah, you need anything tonight?”
I knew whatever he was selling wasn’t anything I was buying, so I said, “Nope, I am good, just out for a sandwich.”
“Come on, brah, you want some weed?” He put his hands to his mouth as if he was smoking some. “No, that would make me hungrier. I just want a sandwich.”
He laughed and said, “You want a girl?” and he pointed at three teenagers sitting on a closed diners’ entrance that I hadn’t noticed previously. It was two boys and a girl, all under eighteen, and the girl was only around fifteen. I got mad right away that he was trying to offer me this young girl, who was not dressed to be a prostitute like the others down the street. She looked very new or uninitiated in prostitution, but he was still offering her to me.
I said, “No, but I want to talk to her real fast,” and walked over to her.
“Hey, I’m Shawn, what’s your name?” Her wannabe pimp came over and stood beside me, and seemed at ease with me talking to her based on our previous rapport. “(name changed) Kayla,” she said, only slightly interested.
“What’s your dream in life?” I asked. “What do you mean? I don’t have a dream,” she responded.
“Well, I am a Christian and a pastor, and God talks to me about his dreams for me and helps me to form my own, so let’s pray for a minute and ask God to show you a dream for your life. He thought of you for millions of years before he ever created you, so let’s ask him what he thought about.”
“Um, okay,” she said, sort of confused but amused.
“Okay, borrow my faith and repeat after me, then wait for an answer. He is going to talk inside of you. Jesus, you love me and created me to enjoy life and live it to its fullness. Show me something that I was created for.”
She repeated it then said, “Whew!” and the two guys on either side were giggling until she said that. She looked like she legitimately felt she heard something.
“What did you hear?” I asked.
“I heard I should be a cook . . . .” She said it with no insecurity, but had a look of wonder on her face like she had never expected that there could be anything else than the nothingness that had driven her to the streets.
“You mean like a chef? Do you like to cook food?” I asked.
“I think so . . . . I haven’t really done it much but yeah, I do!” She was amazed.
Before I let her ponder too much, I said, “God wouldn’t give you such a great idea without giving you steps to take, like tomorrow, toward this dream, so let’s ask him for some steps. Repeat after me: Father, you showed me something that I can do that would make me feel fulfilled and feel your heart. What is a step I can take this week toward it?”
She repeated that and then said, “Woah!”
Her friend next to her had huge wide eyes and said, “What, Kayla?” “God said to call my uncle who owns a diner! I never talk to him because my mom hated him and never let us call him or see him.
Notice, the first time she just heard something inside. The second time she knew it was God and acknowledged him.
“Kayla, do you promise me you will call him tomorrow and talk to him about this?” I asked.
She promised she would. We were exchanging phone numbers when the guy next to her said he wanted a dream too, so we prayed and he had a similar encounter.
Kayla called me the day she talked to her uncle. He and his wife were Christians and had been praying for her, especially since she had run away. They were so happy that she called. She told them what God showed her. They hired her and brought her to live with them. She was an incredible asset to their business, such a hard worker, and very smart about ideas that could bring in a fresh crowd to the diner they owned (that was frequented mostly by older locals). The business grew fast as she partnered with them both on food and business topics.
It was so amazing, because when she was turning seventeen, she called me to update me on her amazing turnaround in life. She had been saved for a while, was living with her uncle and aunt, and had finished school early with a full high school degree. She managed their diner too. Then she said,
“Uncle wants to open up another location and wants me to be a co-owner and help!”
I was excited for her.
“Are you going to go to school for business or for culinary arts?”
“I don’t have time. We are opening it next month! I will own it in just a few years! God’s dream for me is bigger than I thought!” I was so excited for her!
Can you imagine? God spoke to her. I didn’t prophesy to her. I simply helped her believe that God loved her enough to have a conversation with her.
He is such a personal God that he knows we won’t always believe words someone else gives us, so he speaks to us. Pharaoh would never have met Joseph if Joseph hadn’t had the dream and the interpretation of it, but God put the dream in Pharaoh’s heart.
