Divine ambush

"Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress" (Psalm 107:4)

Bill P. was snagged by alcohol at age 10, by cocaine at 14, and then by homosexual lust. At age 20 he asked the Lord to let him sleep and not wake up: "All I wanted was for the pain to end." He made a fortune in Dallas but ended on death's door in Cozumel, Mexico. Two men named Mickey and Gabriel drove him to the border. After another suicide attempt, someone from his mother's church got him to the Colony of Mercy. Chaplain Jim Freed gave him a Bible. He read and got set free.

"Some sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in affliction and in irons….Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress" (Psalm 107:10,13).

Chris C. robbed drug dealers in Atlantic City. He was often "comped" in casino hotels, but, of course, the house always wins. "The same casinos that put me up in $2,000 a night rooms were now having me arrested for eating out of their dumpster." He was driven to the Colony of Mercy in the trunk of his Mom's car (long story). Lying low in the Colony chapel to make good his escape, he read a Bible left open at Colossians 1:19-21.

"Some were fools through their sinful ways….They loathed any kind of food, and they drew near to the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress" (Psalm 107:19).

William Raws was a promising artist in England in the late 19th century, who got his first taste of alcohol when he married a high society lady at age twenty-one. Drink's price tag was their fortune, their property, their marriage, and the day they stood at the gravesite of their three-year-old daughter. Penniless and near death from the effects of rum, he staggered into his room and cried out to God. God heard and saved him. In 1897 William Raws founded the Keswick Colony of Mercy in Whiting, New Jersey.

"Let them extol Him in the congregation of the people….He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water" (Psalm 107:32,35).