The Southern Baptist Academy Blog

By: Karlie Margaret Houser

As a young girl of only ten years old, my grandfather sat beside me on the backyard swing-set and told me a story that I still hold close to my heart today. The story was about a young man, a Pastor, who moved from his parent’s home to the streets of the big city. The Pastor was homeschooled, raised under a roof of God and was very close to his family. He moved when he was 18 years old to help support his family and “see the world.”

It took him several hours to get to the city with plenty of stops along the way. When he finally stepped off the bus, he realized that he was much farther than merely a bus ride from his hometown.

What he saw scared him. Prostitutes and pimps, drugs and drug addicts, crime and criminals; he stood and stared at everything he saw until a young kid ran up to him and kicked him in the shin. The boy wasn’t more than ten years old or so, but had the city life engrained in his very being.

The Pastor looked down at the boy, dropped to his knee and said, “Aren’t you going to repent?”

“Repent? What’s that?” The boy asked.

“Repent. Save yourself. Say you are sorry,” the Pastor responded.

With that, the boy ran off kicking trashcans down and breaking bottles all along his way until he was out of sight and could only be heard.

Not sure how to respond, the Pastor chased the noises of the boy and screamed at the top of his lungs, “REPENT, REPENT AND SAVE YOURSELF! REPENT, REPENT AND SAVE YOURSELF!”

He never caught the child, but ran for a solid hour up and down the street screaming at the top of his lungs. He did not say anything but those words, and eventually drew the attention of the vagabonds that surrounded him.

The following day he decided to run up and down the same street screaming his message, “REPENT, REPENT AND SAVE YOURSELF! REPENT, REPENT AND SAVE YOURSELF!”

Every day. An hour a day. The Pastor’s screams became known throughout the area as that of a deranged man who lost his marbles. He was the neighborhood joke. Never a hello, merely the subject of their taunts. Those screams lasted twenty years, every day at the same time a day, for an hour a day.

Like clockwork, the Pastor left his quarters and ran to the streets to spread his message. He never took a day off. Never strayed from his path. Never let the sneers of others bother him – and sneers there were, but not just words, he was also the target of rotten fruit, trash, and spit.

One day, about twenty-five years from when he first stepped off of the bus, a man in his early thirties approached the Pastor after he was finishing his hour long running chant. The young man met the Pastor at his front door.

“Why? Why do you continue your rant?” The young man asked.

“Because,” he said with a smile.

“Because you like the abuse? You like the trash? You like the stains of fruit that have piled up for the past twenty-some years? Had I known that, I wouldn’t have kicked you in the shin, I would have handed you an umbrella.” The boy admitted with the look of bewilderment engrained on his face. “Don’t you know that you can’t change this city? These people are who they are. They ain’t changing no matter how loud or long you yell,” the young man said with conviction.

The Pastor smiled at the young man and waited until the two were eye to eye.

“What makes you think I’m trying to change them? As much as I wish and pray, I know that they can’t change until they allow God into their lives and help them change themselves. As for me and why I run, I promised myself many years ago that I will never allow this city to change me.”