Francis Chan tells the story of a 59-year old delivered from cocaine addiction:
"We were out knocking on doors in the inner city in San Francisco and there was this this one guy - James. I knocked on his door, went into his apartment.
He’s smoking pot, he’s on methodone, he’s drinking, he’s been a crack addict for 40 years."
I got to share the gospel with him and he asked Jesus into his life. We prayed for him and we baptized him a couple of weeks later. We brought him over to our house and had a birthday party for him as he clocked 59. He brought all his drugs and paraphernalia and a hammer and we just smashed it all in the backyard and buried them.
Then he said, "but pray for me, the first of the month is coming up. On the first of the month, everyone gets their welfare cheques, we pay our rent and the rest of it we use to buy drugs. Everyone is high on the first of the month on drugs. Everyone is so messed up on the first of the month. It’s a routine for me and I’m scared because it’s coming up in the next few days. Pray for me. I’ve never been clean on the first of the month. It’s been about 25 years since I’ve not been completely bombed on the first day of the month."
So we prayed for him and I thought, I’m going to do more than praying, I’m gonna go to him and I’m gonna work with him all day long because he’s my brother now. I’m gonna hang out with him all day and make sure he’s doing nothing wrong.
But then I came down with the flu, and I couldn’t even get out of bed. I felt terrible. I was worried about James. Then one of the volunteers that’s been working with us, a young guy called Aaron called me and said "it’s okay, I’m gonna go visit James today." I was like good, stay with him.
Then I got a call from Aaron at the end of the night, and he said, "you will never believe what happened."
He said Francis, “So I picked up James in the morning and we put all the money in the bank, so he couldn’t just give it to drug dealers. Then James said it’s been years since he’s not been high on the first of the month, so I said let’s go celebrate. Let me take you out to dinner. So we go out to dinner, I was looking for this one good restaurant but I couldn’t find it on my GPS, then we saw a Popeyes Restaurant, and so I said let’s just go there. So I got to sit down and I walked through Romans 6 to 8 with James and talked about the Spirit and talked about how this can turn him around and how he can stay clean. Then I looked at James, and I asked how did it all start?"
And James said, “I remember I was 19 years old, I already smoked pot a little bit, I’ve been drinking, and then I came to the restaurant where I worked and my manager offered me cocaine. He just lined it up in the back. I was curious, so I tried it, and I got hooked. I fell in love with it. At first I just sort of did it casually, but I just had to have more and more and more and now it’s been 40 years. I will never forget it, because I was a cook at the restaurant and he brought it to the back room."
And suddenly James stopped and he looked around, and said, "wait, this is the restaurant, and he mentioned the name of the restaurant back then, is this #599.....?"
They said, "yes."
He goes, "this is the very room where it happened."
And he stood up, he had chills all over his body
And he said,"40 years ago, in this room is where it all started and I’ve been lost in this desert for 40 years and God takes me to the very room where it started to deliver me?"
He said, “If I ever doubted God, I will never doubt Him again”.
Right there they celebrated and worshiped God in the restaurant.
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QTHFxeC1Cg
