At Gunpoint!

How would you react to being held up at gunpoint?

Several Church friends were in from out of town, and I was excited to meet up with them at a restaurant on this particular Saturday night. There was no place to park on the main road, so I had to park on a side residential street. It wasn’t the best part of town that I was in, but it wasn’t considered a bad part either, so I didn’t think too much about it.

As I began to walk toward the main road and restaurant from my car, I heard someone running behind me. My first instinct was that it could be someone dangerous, but then I calmed myself down by thinking that it was a nice night for a jog. The man, who was about 15 feet behind me now, asked for the time. I pulled out my cell phone and told him, and then I continued walking at a brisker pace. He muttered something else to me, so I turned around to see what he wanted.

I found a black semiautomatic handgun pointed at my face.

What would you do?

So how would you react? Would your first thought be to pray to God for His protection? Would you try to reason with the guy?

Perhaps you have seen too many movies and you would try to knock the gun away? Or maybe you would take the opposite approach and be in dire need of a clean pair of shorts?

This is actually a true story that happened to me a few years ago, and yet my reaction was none of the above.

The man demanded that I give him my money. I was amazed and shocked that this was happening to me, and I stared at the gun with a blank look on my face. He assumed that I was trying to size up the gun, so he then told me that the gun was indeed loaded. This snapped me out of my shock, and I pulled out my credit card and said that I had no cash on me. He then told me to give him my phone, which I willingly did, and then he instructed me to keep walking toward the main road, without looking back. I heard him run in the opposite direction, and the confrontation was over.

Still ashamed

Though it’s been a few years since the mugging, I am still ashamed that during the entire encounter, never once did I say a silent prayer to God. It was 45 seconds when I desperately needed God’s protection in a potentially lethal situation, and He wasn’t on my mind. I could blame it on the shock and anger that I felt; but in retrospect, I feel that it was a reflection of my relationship with God, since most of my attention was instead devoted to making it through graduate school.

As Christians—whether baptized or not—we will have ups and downs in our relationship with God and Christ due to our carnal nature. We must make sure we do everything in our power to stay close to God, through prayer, Bible study, fasting and meditation. We have to make the effort for the relationship to work (James 4:8).

The man who robbed me was never caught. I had several sleepless nights and was scared to be in an unfamiliar area at night for some time after that. All he got was my cell phone, but it was a scary and eye-opening experience. I know without a doubt that God protected me from physical harm.

Refocusing

Romans 8:6 tells us, “For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” That night I could have been shot and killed. I was in a carnal state of mind, but mercifully God protected me.

This scripture means even more to me after that experience. I encourage you to please use my experience to make sure that you are always spiritually minded and that your relationship with God is always healthy and in the forefront of your mind.

Gregg Pennington, a young adult in the Louisville, Kentucky, area, has completed his chiropractic degree and is currently pursuing a nurse practitioner degree also.