Make Me Like Joe!
If you think you can't make a difference, think again Paul J. Meyer
Joe
was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a Bowery mission. Prior
to his conversion, Joe had gained the reputation of being a hopeless
dirty wino for whom there was no hope, only a miserable existence in the
ghetto. But following his conversion to a new life with God, everything
changed. Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with
the mission had ever known.
Joe
spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission, doing whatever
needed to be done. There was never any task that was too lowly for Joe
to take on. There was never anything that he was asked to do that he
considered beneath him.
Whether
it was cleaning up the vomit left by some violently sick person or
scrubbing the toilets after careless men left the men's room filthy. Joe
did what was asked with a smile on his face and a seeming gratitude for
the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed feeble men who
wandered into the mission and off the street and to undress and tuck bed
men who were too out of it to take care of themselves.
One
evening, when the mission director was delivering his evangelistic
message to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with drooped heads,
one man looked up, came down the aisle to the altar and knelt to pray,
crying out for God to help him to change.
The repentant drunk kept shouting, "Oh God! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!"
The
director of the mission leaned over and said to the man, "Son, I think
it would be better if you prayed, 'Make me like Jesus.'"
The man looked up at the director with a quizzical expression on his face and asked, "Is he like Joe?"
Tony Campolo
