We can curse the darkness or we can light a candle

We had such an amazingly honest guest speaker at the recent weekend service - Pastor Bill Wilson. I was scrambling to record his soundbites. I love it when very experienced pastors (he has been in ministry for more than 30 years) say seemingly politically incorrect statements. I don't want to hear prim and proper statements; I want to hear battle-hardened truths from those who have been in the dirty trenches for a long long time. In their words, I sense their hearts.

Bill Wilson's soundbites:
"We can curse the darkness or we can light a candle."
"I wish I was living in biblical times. Instead, I've to live today where idiots run free and I can't kill anyone without a penalty."
"I was asked if I wanted a hearing aid. I told the doctor that I've been in the ministry so long that I've heard enough. I don't need a hearing aid."
"There is no superfluous banter in the Bible. Every word in the Bible is in there for a reason."
"Don't miss the profundity that is in the simplicity of the concept."
"Jesus glows in the dark. When it gets darker, the light gets brighter."

His background: Wilson's mother abandoned him on a street corner in Pinellas Park, Florida. She said, "I can't do this anymore. You wait here, I will be back." Bill stayed on that street corner for three days, but his mother never came back. Dave Rudenis, a local mechanic and committed Christian, found him there and took him to his home. Rudenis offered to pay this young man's way to a Christian summer camp. It was during this camp that the 12-year-old Wilson committed his life to God.

He now runs America's largest ministry to children. Every Christmas eve, he goes back to that corner where his mother left him and spends the night there because he wants to remember where he came from and how a stranger came to him with God's love.

In an attempt to remain in touch with the people attending his congregation, Bill Wilson still lives in a building adjacent to his Church. He continues to walk through the often dangerous neighborhoods of Bushwick in an effort to carry on his work. Over the years, Wilson has been shot, stabbed, beaten and hospitalized numerous times and is adept at raising millions of dollars for the ministry telling stories of hardship. Yet he remains committed to the work. Bill Wilson still drives one of the hundreds of buses utilized by his ministry each week, when he is in town.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Wilson_(pastor)