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Jory Fisher: Hello. This is Jory Fisher with JoryFisher.com and I am very honored to be part of this project—this incredible project “5 Pieces of Advice.” I have told this story that I’m about to tell you to friends. I’ve just never shared it with the public at large and my understanding from what Pawel [Nazaruk] told me is that this could be a very large audience. I hope if you’re listening to this that this is something that will be meaningful to you in some way. I ask a blessing upon it.
Let’s go back to 1979. I was working for the Federal Government. I actually was with FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and I was working downtown [Washington] DC. I was exercising on my lunch hour, and I hurt my foot really, really badly. It went in between two mats that I’d been exercising on. It turned out I’d pulled numerous ligaments in my foot. I didn’t know what it was at that time, but I was in so much pain. Understand that I’m a little bit of a wimp. I went to the doctor, got on crutches, and they just said it’s going to take a lot of time for it to heal.
Well, that night I was in my apartment in Fairfax, Virginia, and I was praying to God. The background story here that you need to know is that I had been raised in a Christian family and my faith had been incredibly important to me. I was involved in Young Life and then I went to college at SMU. I was very much involved in Campus Crusade for Christ, the Baptist Student Union, and various other things. Then I went to Spain. I spent my junior year in Madrid, and I met some people there, some Spaniards, who had a very intellectual approach to faith and did not believe that God was involved in the details — that there was a God, but He was more distant from us than I was used to.
After a year and actually more of being immersed in that, I started to believe that myself, that God was not involved in the details, and I started to think that I didn’t really need to bother Him with certain things. Well, that distancing actually did not go well for me. I fell away from God. I was not going to church as I used to do and, definitely, I had put some distance there.
So here I was in a lot of pain, I mean a lot of pain for me, and I started praying, kind of like, “God, I know you’re there but I don’t want to bother you and I suspect you’re busy with other things; but if you don’t mind helping me with my foot here, this whole pain issue, I would greatly appreciate it.” Somehow I managed to go to sleep that night and I got up the next morning. You probably can imagine what I’m going to say: I did not have any pain. In fact, I had forgotten about it. I started walking to the bathroom to take a shower and, all of a sudden, I remembered what had happened the day before and all of that. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I feel no pain!”
This was meaningful to me because, yes, I like to go through life pain free, but more importantly, it was meaningful to me because I knew that God had heard my prayer and that was what I needed to get closer again to God.
I guess I was around 28, 29, something like that. I actually, in the shower that morning, rededicated my life to Christ. I’m not going to tell you that it has been perfect since then because it hasn’t. I get closer, I get farther away. I get closer, I get farther away.
But I am here to tell you that life goes a whole lot better for me when I am closer to God.
There’s just no question in my heart, in my mind, in my spirit, in my soul that God loves me, that God loves you—and I don’t even know who is listening—and that He wants to have a relationship with me, He wants to have a relationship with you. To do that, we just need to be open to letting Him speak with us. We need to listen to Him. We need to meditate on Holy Scripture. We need to share our burdens and our concerns with Him. We need to develop and strengthen that relationship.
When I was young, I memorized Proverbs 3:5–6, and it has just really been like a life verse for me as it has for many, many people.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.”
It’s just so true, and so I encourage you today to just really think about what I’ve said and probably what other people have said to you as well that, yes, there is a Creator and that Creator, the Person, the God who created this beautiful world that we live in, He wants to have a relationship with me.
He wants to have a relationship with you.
He wants to have a relationship with all of His children.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity, Pawel, to share this message, and God bless each and everyone. Again this is Jory Fisher with JoryFisher.com.
Flickr photo by bruna camargo
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