During the Native American outreaches of our On Eagles' Wings® Team on eleven reservations one summer, I met a man with an amazing story. I'll call him Chad. Here is his story as he explained it to me. Chad was raised to be the last traditional chief in his tribe and a spiritual shaman. Like many Native Americans over the years, he was sent to a religious boarding school, where in Christ's name he was forced to dress, look and speak as a white man - and punished if he accidentally spoke a word of his own language. The anger that built up in him made him a most unlikely candidate to ever give his heart to this one he thought to be "the white man's God."
Chad wanted to die, so he went to Vietnam, hoping someone would kill him. He became one of the few good enough to be called a Navy Seal and then he went through the horrors of being a prisoner of war. When he returned from the war, he became a gang leader in a major city with some 10,000 people in his organization. He was stabbed twice, shot three times, and one night he found himself on an operating table with surgeons fighting long odds to save his life.
As my friend continued sharing his story with me he talked about the night Jesus became real to him. Chad vividly remembers the near-death experience he had as he found himself actually looking down on his own life-or-death surgery. According to my friend, as he looked down on the operating room, Chad saw that a big man with shoulder-length hair appeared next to him - a man wearing a long white robe with a gold sash around it. He spoke to Chad and He said, "I died for you, Chad. I want you to give your life to Me." What blew Chad away was that this man spoke to him in his own Native language! That night, Chad realized this Jesus could not be just a white man's God. As Chad said, "No white man's God would have spoken to me in my language!" Since the mid-1990s, he has been a powerful leader for Jesus Christ among Native people, and now a great friend and partner with us in reaching his people.
In Peter's words, He does not "want anyone to perish" (2 Peter 3:9). He knows exactly what will get their attention, exactly what kind of messenger they will listen to. Your prayer needs to be, "Lord Jesus, please rescue this one I care about, whatever it takes, within your will." There are no limits to His saving love, no limits to His saving power, no limits to His creativity and persistence in reaching them where they are.