The Pastor's Heart - By Desiree Future Page 0,7

know because God blessed me with my lovely wife over thirty years ago and my cup is still running over. Wait on her!” And with that said the large crowd of people started clapping as the older man took his seat and the younger man took to the podium.

“Today is Friends and Family Day here at our church. So if there are any visitors would you please stand.” Kingston waited while one by one people started to stand to their feet.

“We here at Christ the Lord Fellowship Church would like to welcome and thank you for coming to spend time with us. You could have gone to any other church, but you chose this church and for that we are grateful.” Kingston said while scanning the many faces in the crowded church. Suddenly he could have sworn he saw Sinclair.

He shook it off and kept going. “Now before I began my sermon, I need to let you know what the ground rule is here. I know some of you are looking at me like I have lost my mind talking about ground rules.” Kingston said as he placed his Bible on the podium. “This man must be crazy.” Kingston joked.

Sinclair thought he was absolutely right, he was crazy. If she wasn’t squeezed between two women both with sleeping babies on their laps, she would have surely gotten up and left.

“The ground rule is that if the person sitting next to you starts praising the Lord, you help them get their praise on. Because when one and two touch and agree, it shall be done,” Kingston explained.

“Amen.” The woman next to Sinclair yelled out, causing her sleeping baby to shift on her lap.

“Now watch how good God is. The sermon that I wrote was supposed to be about forgiveness but for some reason God is leading me here. Psalm 34: Oh taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts him.” Kingston began to stutter a little bit just like his father when he was about to deliver a powerful message.

“Come on. Come on.” Kingston’s father said from his seat behind him.

“Now, now I don’t know about you but when I got my first taste of the Lord I never looked back, because when I found the joy of the Lord there was no need to look back. Can, can I get a witness up in here?” Kingston had come out of his jacket and came down off the pulpit into the pews.

“You better tell it Pastor Carter,” The organist said from his bench seat.

“I met a man at a gas station one day and he asked me if he could wash my car in exchange for five dollars so he could buy food for his kids. I just gave him the money because I didn’t have time for him to wash my car.” Kingston began.

“Well.” A deacon said out loud.

“He told me he would only take my money if I came back the next day to let him wash my car. So when I came back the next day he was waiting for me. He told me he had gone into a store to buy the groceries but was stopped as soon as he entered the store. He had put in a job application for the assistant manager’s position at the store and they had been trying to reach him to offer him the job. They not only gave him the job, but they also gave him all his groceries free of charge.” Kingston yelled as he bounced and leaped for joy.

“Amen!” The woman shouted sitting next to Sinclair.

Remembering the ground rule, Sinclair shouted. “Amen!”

“He told me had I not given him the money to go into the store in the first place he would not have had a reason to go in. He thanked me and handed me back the money I had given him the day before. Amen somebody!” Kingston shouted into the microphone. “I have never experienced what that man had to but I saw the joy in his eyes knowing he could feed his kids. I, I felt humbled because I was used to having everything and here this man only wanted to feed his kids.”

“Say so.” His brother Jamison shouted from the pews.

“That’s when I turned my life over to the Lord because He humbled me. He showed me that I could be sitting on top of the world today and begging for money tomorrow. Now I don’t know about