Amazingly In Tune

But my servant...had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully... (Num. 14: 24)


Whenever I think of following the Spirit I think of our friend Jesse. We met Jesse at USC when we first moved to Los Angeles. He was a well-built, rough-and-tumble guy from East L.A., a native-Californian, with roots stretching clear back to when California was still part of Mexico. He had one arm that was just a stump — it had been caught in a meat grinder at work when he was a teenager. He was now at USC doing graduate work in educational psychology. I’ll always remember the day he helped us move to our new apartment in the ‘hood, carrying our sofa with one arm...and a stump.

Jesse had an uncanny ability to take instruction from the spirit; he lived very close to the Lord, despite his rough exterior. I can remember many times in our USC days when Jesse would just show up on somebody’s doorstep and announce, “Hello, Brother Griffin. The Lord told me to bring you a pot of soup,” or some such thing. I loved how bold he was about that. I might have been willing to take someone the soup, but perhaps not confident enough to say flat-out that the Lord told me to do it.

Then one day Jesse was sent in my direction. It was a wintry morning and we were out of town, but there was a message from Jesse on our answering machine: “Good morning, Charrette. This is Jesse. The Lord told me to call you and tell you He loves you.” Doesn’t sound like too big a deal, unless you recognize the timing and the circumstances — something too soon for anyone to know. Something we hadn’t announced yet. Jesse miraculously had called me on the very morning my mother passed away. Within hours of her passing. That could only have come from the Lord. And oh, how I needed that message from God right then!

I was in awe at how humbly and precisely Jesse was willing to take direction from the Spirit. And I was touched that the Lord cared enough about me individually that morning to find such a reliable messenger to tell me He loved me. Thank you, Jesse.