Cigar Smokin Preacher!

Yesterday Kirk Franklin was a guest on the Oprah show where he revealed his long time struggle with pornography and his battle to overcome. One point of interest for me was an enocunter he described with his pastor:

"When I was 15, Kirks says he began getting serious about his faith and went to his pastor to talk about his struggle with pornography. "He sat back in his chair and he took a puff out of his cigar," Kirk remembers. "He said, 'Oh, you're young, you'll grow out of it.' He had no idea that he spoke death into my life. That shut me down because [I thought], 'Well, someday I'll grow out.' [Instead], I grew in and I grew in deep."

Can you imagine for a moment, had the conversation with his pastor gone another way, Kirk may have been on Oprah for entirely different reason. I see hundreds of young people every week and I want to "cut them at the pass" before they end up on Oprah describing how they almost lost their reputation, family and career because I (or some other pastor) was willing to settle for trite answers (about their issues) instead of being willing to do life with them and walk through the stuff!

Signing Off

I Think, Therefore I Blog!

Ralph