"The prayer of a righteous man availeth much..." (read this!)

True story. Sorry for the length.

On this past January 12, 2014 - a Sunday morning at about 8:00 AM, my elderly uncle - a widower - was robbed in his own home at gunpoint by a 21-year-old who can't stay out of trouble with the law.

He was waiting for my uncle outside when he went to get the paper and when he got back to his carport by the door the young man jumped at him from around the corner of the house and put the gun in his face.

My uncle, not able to wrestle down a 21-year-old was overpowered and the young man forced him inside his own house.

He threatened to "blow his head off" several times. He took the money from this wallet, from the coffee table, and said that he knew my uncle had a safe because my uncle sells fish from his home.

He told my uncle to open it, but my uncle's hand was trembling so that he couldn't get the combination to work right. The young man said that he would take the small safe with him.

As he was getting ready to leave, he put the gun in my uncle's face again and told him he was going to kill him.

My uncle said to him, "That's fine. I'm just going to heaven to be with my Lord and my wife who I haven't seen in five years. I miss her horribly. Where are you going when you die? Are you a Christian? I'm guessing you aren't. If you don't have Jesus, you are going to hell."

The young man didn't say anything. He just stared at my uncle.

My uncle asked, "Do you have any little children?" The young man nodded. My uncle continued ... "Well, how are you going to raise them while your are headed for hell? What will they learn from you? I have a granddaughter across the street who walks over here every single Sunday morning and goes to church with me. If you kill me, she will walk over here and find a bloody mess and you will have destroyed two lives."

He asked if the young man would just tie him up and he swore not to call the sheriff for a least an hour.

The young man complied. He told my uncle as he was binding him to a chair, "I'm taking your car, but my pick-up man isn't far away. The sheriff should find your car easily."

The last thing he said to my uncle on the way out the door was, "I'm sorry I did this to you."

Both he and his pick-up man - who was the mastermind of the whole thing and who committed armed robbery in another state as a juvenile - and has learned by know NOT to be the one holding the gun - were caught within two days.

My uncle goes to church with my parents. My dad has told me that not a Sunday or Wednesday service has passed that my uncle has not prayed for those young men in church and cried aloud like a baby in deep burden for their immortal souls. He pleads for them like they were his own sons.

He cried for them and prayed for them at the community Brotherhood meeting (Christian Men's Fellowship). He can't talk about it without crying for their souls.

My uncle is a righteous man who leads other men.

Yesterday, February 8, 2014, the sheriff's deputy called my uncle and said that when the local prison ministry had come to conduct services that the young man who held the gun on my uncle was saved.

He's going to face a long prison term and his family has turned their backs on him calling him hopeless and washing their hands of him and all his illegal escapades.

My uncle didn't see a hopeless case and prayed knee-callousing prayers that apparently availed much.

It makes me ashamed of my own short-comings in prayer.

I would ask you for prayer for the other young man - who is also 21 and is a father, also.

And prayer for this prison ministry to take a special interest in the discipleship of this man who has claimed to want to surrender to Christ's Lordship.