Biking turned bad to good

“What’s that noise?”….
“Oh it’s nothin’. Just roll back over and go to sleep.”
“No, i really think there may be someone out there. Did you hear that?”
“No.”
Maybe it was my imagination that night. But a few days later Jonathan came in from the living room balcony and asked “Janie, where are our bikes?” My blue mountain bike was a very special wedding gift, enjoyed immensely as Jonathan and i had ridden around on dirt and paved trails up Mt. Hood and on our honeymoon. Our bikes were the mode to building relationship with one another not to mention transportation to work for Jonathan.

Startled by such a question I replied, “i don’t know, why?”
He blurted out “Our bikes are gone!”- with a big emphasis on “gone”.
Our eyes met and exchanged the look. The look that says “we have been …..defiled”. We had been robbed right under our noses.
At the very instant someone hears such bad news one has a choice. Completely let it go immediately or think about it and let it fester until anger or bitterness seeps in and steals the joy of life. This particular moment i did not stop to think about it. I was compelled to say, “let’s pray.” As His theme for our prayer phased in so our hurt began to tune out. “Lord, - bring this thief to repentance. Give him an opportunity to hear words of life. Lord, we implore you that perhaps even we ourselves could witness to him.” Even though that would be a miracle we still wanted to ask it. Over the course of the next couple of weeks my thoughts about those bikes fueled my energy to pray for that thief.
About a month had past and it was in the dark but warm early morning hours when we jumped at the hearing of someone shouting outside our window. “Hold it right there and don’t move!” was the shout. Directly below our window we beheld a man squatting backwards in the back seat of a red convertible while pointing a gun at an apartment tenant standing behind the car. He held his aim until the driver whizzed out of sight. We reached for the phone to dial 911.
The police cars caused quite a hooplah at our Holly Ridge apartment complex on Powell Blvd. The neighbors peered over the white stairwell to watch the inquiry of a stunned man who stated that he had been robbed. Across the hall i heard some neighbors declare “Oh, no wonder he was robbed. He is a big thief himself! I’m friends with that guy and i should know.” I pondered for a moment the memories of seeing that man driving around in his dark windowed, covered red truck and going in and out of his basement apartment diagonally below us. His window view of the parking lot and easy spot of our balcony would tell him when the coast might be clear to take off with our mountain bikes. It seemed awfully reasonable to me that this might truly be the man who stole our bikes. Whoa- ! This is amazing that God would answer our prayer to discover who our mysterious thief was.
Ok. Now we would have the chance to be intentional about who we would share our faith with. I searched my mind for some creative ways to meet that man. Maybe baking a pie and giving concern about his bruised head from a hit that night would be the place to start? God did not need me. After only a couple of days i was sitting in my small cozy living room one evening and heard a rap at my door. Upon opening the door my heart leaped to see that it was HIM and a friend.
Ok….. You gotta understand this is a ghost story…. one of those Holy ghost stories.
“HI THERE!!” i said, and asked “How are you doing? I was so concerned about you the other night with that man and his gun. We called the police. I hope that you are ok. Did you get hit hard?” ….lot’s of questions to vie for time… just enough time to think about how i was going to tell this man about Jesus. He answered briefly to the questions.
“I know how it is to get things stolen – we had our bikes stolen one night.”
“You don’t say. Wow, and on the third floor patio. ”responding a little blank and vaguely surprised to my account.
“Yes, but you know we immediately prayed for that poor man. I prayed i would get to meet him one day and tell him about Jesus.” So, before two sobered faces i took this favorable opportunity to tell them about the love of Jesus whose death on the cross could save those whose lifestyle of thievery headed them directly to a place called hell. Simple repentance and belief would bring them into a right relationship with God. “Jesus beckons us to believe.”
I don’t know if that man ever came to believe or follow Christ. But God had turned what appeared to be a bad thing into a good thing. If he was or wasn’t our thief according to friends’ testimonies he nevertheless needed to hear the heart of a victim who cared more for a soul than earthly goods. In my heart i gladly exchanged our bikes for that Holy Ghost moment.