AND HE CALLED HIM FATHER
By Jimmy Tan
I still recall when Luke Roy waved me over to pray for Lawrence Goh after Good Friday service on 30 March 2018. “This guy sure looks … unfriendly,” I thought.
A breakthrough came when he decided to ferry his mum to our Chinese Ministry’s Evergreen Fellowship meetings on Wednesdays. He said he had two hours to kill over breakfast or kopi.
Surrounded by friends who had brought him to the service, Lawrence asked me to pray for his health and finances. He was a limousine driver struggling to settle his home mortgage. To renew his driver’s licence meant he needed to clear some driving tests but two major strokes had weakened him. He was still limping. I mustered enough faith to pray that the Lord would bless and grant him his requests.
The Navigators basic material is usually covered in six weeks but we took a year to complete three chapters! Post-stroke meant it took more time for him to digest and discuss the questions. As he persevered, I settled for just one key verse to study in our meal together. This left us with ample time to have heartfelt conversations about his life and struggles and address his questions about the verse.
I remember also asking that Lawrence would ultimately experience God’s love. Looking at his face, it was as if all the lights in our church sanctuary had collapsed into an inescapable black hole in his heart. I had not met a more broken man.
As his spiritual hunger grew, the fog in his mind started to clear. Once, he excitedly told me what happened when he took the advice of those who had undergone “Compass your finances, God’s way” courses. Though he was still struggling with his finances, he decided to give God a regular tithe based on his average earnings. He said the Lord sent him even more business! I probed if he would still rejoice if his finances didn’t prosper. He looked me in the eye and emphatically said, “I don’t believe in God for material prosperity, ok!”
For sure he was amazed (as was I, clearly rebuked for my lack of faith) when he later told me he’d cleared the tricky driving reassessment. He started to work and earn. Lawrence soon followed Luke Roy to Elder Joshua’s cell group and subsequently prayed to ask Jesus into his life.
I can only be in awe as I recall my prayer for him the Sunday we first met. No one else could have engineered God’s workings in Lawrence’s life, and how Lawrence responded in ‘working out’ his salvation (Philippians 2:12,13).
The most thrilling spiritual transformation was still to come. He had been bringing his mother to Evergreen Fellowship for many weeks but she was not open to the Gospel. During our lesson on obstacles to answered prayer, I probed if he knew why she was resisting. He candidly told me that he still hated her; he blamed her for her part in the broken marriage to his dad. Right there, I gently challenged him to forgive her, for I sensed that was probably why she wasn’t saved yet.
For sure, there were things Lawrence still struggled with, like smoking. He smilingly told me not to lecture him because that would only make him rebel. But he chuckled and said I could check on his progress anytime. One day he proudly reported he had managed to cut down on his smoking.
I could see in his eyes that the Holy Spirit was again at work, convicting him through the scriptures shared earlier. To his credit, he said that while he honestly struggled, he would consider it seriously.
During the circuit breaker, his income, like all limousine drivers, went south. Yet he never once doubted God or accused Him of wrongdoing.
Before long, he did decide to forgive his mum. And he told her so. When sisters from Evergreen visited her to share the Gospel, she gave her life to Christ. One could see her dour demeanour also change. She would later testify, at her own baptism, that she believed because she had seen the transformation in Lawrence.
Lawrence collapsed at home on the morning of 12 July 2020 from a third stroke, this one so massive he never regained consciousness. And as much as many of us prayed for a miracle, the One whom Lawrence wished “Happy Father’s Day” chose to call his child Home on 22 July. Though Lawrence’s discipleship seemed fast tracked in those two years, I still found myself protesting, “But Lord, we didn’t complete our Bible study!” Yet I sensed the Lord’s gentle, but clear, rebuttal, “Is your Bible ever completely studied before you meet the Author?”
Right after our Father’s Day online service on 21 June 2020, Lawrence texted me saying he felt his heart clearly warmed by God’s love. He sent me a prayer, which he asked me to edit and share with anyone I saw fit. It conveyed, “I never had a father from birth. Never knew his love. Never celebrated Father’s Day. But today at the online service, I felt something change. I experienced my Heavenly Father’s love for me. So... this Father’s Day is for you, God.”
I sensed God was pleased to take him Home, not because Lawrence’s work (and Bible study) on earth was done, but because God’s work in Lawrence here was done. In God’s amazing grace and perfect time, Lawrence had indeed turned from being like “sheep going astray” towards the “Shepherd and Overseer” of his soul (1 Peter 2:25).
Then the Lord challenged him, through Luke Roy, to keep the Sabbath instead of taking jobs on Sunday mornings. Again, he trusted God and came regularly for 8 a.m. service. Once more, he said business flowed his way. He’d insist, “Bro, I just can’t explain it!”
When baptism lessons were announced, he signed up and was baptised on 26 August 2018. Those present saw that God’s light had returned to Lawrence’s face. Around this time, I felt prompted to invite him for weekly one-on-one Bible study. He said yes, but initial meetings were sporadic due to the irregular and long hours he demanded of himself to clear his mortgage.
When the Alpha Course was organised in 2018, he signed up without hesitation on top of weekly commitments at cell and our kopi BS session. The Lord encountered him powerfully at the weekendaway session on the Holy Spirit. He forgave his late father who had divorced his mum when he was born. He said he was compelled to obey during one prayer ministry time. Jimmy and Lawrence at the Frankel coffee shop
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