I am going to McDonald’s

A little over a year ago, a godly Bible teacher, Charles Capps, passed into Heaven. He was well-known for his teachings on the power of the tongue and the importance of believing and speaking the Word of God.

The Lord used Brother Capps in a very unusual way at a critical moment in my life, in a very tense situation long ago—and he wasn’t even there!

When I was born again, I jumped in with both feet. In my twenties, I frequently went out to the streets, along with other young Christians, to witness—sharing the Gospel and praying with the lost. The joy and freedom of expressing the good news with someone who was hungry for Jesus motivated my friends and me to continue going back, weekend after weekend.

As the church I attended grew to mega-church proportions, we were blessed to sit under the teaching of some of the finest Bible teachers in the country. One of those teachers was Charles Capps. At the same time that we were hosting a growing number of national speakers, just about everything else we did in that church was becoming more and more structured and organized. This included the weekend street-preaching jaunts.

Interest in this personal evangelism had spread in the church I was attending, and leadership was put in charge of this radical group of teens, twenties, and thirties for the sake of safety, oversight, and training for those who were new to one-on-one evangelism.

One weekend evening in my late twenties, we were ready to “hit the streets”. Small teams were assigned for the evening’s adventure, and two newer believers, a young man and woman, were assigned to accompany me.

When we arrived downtown, we met under the Gateway Arch and prayed together as a large group. We then made arrangements to meet back at McDonald’s—housed on a riverboat and anchored opposite the south leg of the Arch on the Mississippi River.

My little group took off together and each of us shared with various individuals as we walked along the cobblestone road that ran parallel to the river. Toward the end of the evening, we climbed up the wide set of steps that arced toward the south leg of the Arch and began sharing the gospel with a young woman we met near the top.

She was receptive to the message, and as I was about to ask her if she would like to pray with us, I noticed that my two companions had ditched me in favor of McDonald’s—an obvious Big Mac attack. Let ‘em go, I thought; this lady wants to receive Jesus.

But just as I was about to pray with her, her eyes nearly bugged out of her head, and backing away quickly, she just took off. Huh? I was wondering, perplexed. And as I turned around, I understood why that young woman had skedaddled so abruptly.

I found myself surrounded by six to eight young men, circling closely in on me. But before I had time to get frightened, something very unusual happened.

Suddenly, I was at my church. Oh, yeah, my body was still standing on the steps going up to the south leg of the Arch and I was still surrounded by six to eight strange young men, but in my spirit I was at church. I was at a meeting in which Charles Capps was speaking, and I could see and hear everything with crystal clarity. There he was, standing behind the pulpit preaching, and I could see the scalp on his head through his familiar crew cut—that’s just how vivid this “vision” was. And he was preaching a message about Jesus in a boat in the middle of a storm.

With my body still standing on the steps leading to the south leg of the Arch, Brother Capps was preaching in his Arkansas twang, “Jesus said, ‘Let us go to the other side of the lake’ and my brother, sister, if Jesus said, ‘Let us go to the other side of the lake,’ then nothing—no devil, no storm, no wind, no waves—nothing could stop Him from goin’ to the other side of the lake.”

And with that, there I was, back at the Arch, surrounded by this group of men. I noticed Riverboat McDonald’s, and I said out loud and with great authority, “I am going to McDonald’s.”

I don’t have a clue what those guys thought when I said this, but I passed through the midst of them without so much as a finger touching my body. As I stepped out of the circle and down the steps, the Holy Ghost spoke very clearly to my heart, “Walk, don’t run. Hold your head high, and don’t look back.”

I did as I was instructed, and walked, step by step, down that wide, curving stairway. Boom, boom, boom, my steps pounded decisively as I marched to the street below.

“Oooh, baby! You got fries with that shake?” they called out after me, along with other unmentionable “compliments”.

I never looked back. When I got to the street, I crossed it with my head held high. Boom, boom, boom, my marching feet blasted as I stomped across the gangplank bridge to McDonald’s. Walking tall and in the authority of Christ, I reached the threshold. Never before had the Golden Arches looked so good.

I opened the door and stepped into the wonderfully lit, French fry-soaked atmosphere. There, seated inside, were my two young team members and everyone else. “Hi, Dorothy! What took you so long? We’ve got a seat for you!”

And as the reality of what just happened dawned on me, my knees turned to Jello and buckled beneath me—and then I got up and ordered some fries.

Brother Capps returned to that church years later and I had the opportunity to share my story with him. He didn’t say a word; he just smiled, nodded his head, and then walked away.

May the help you need be made abundantly plain by the Holy Spirit in your time of trouble. The Lord is faithful.

Dorothy

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Psalm 46:1b