{"id":11025,"date":"2024-07-02T11:32:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T15:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=11025"},"modified":"2024-07-02T11:32:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T15:32:47","slug":"arkansas-preacher-forgives-gunman-who-shot-him-during-sermon-we-cant-hold-bitterness-and-anger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/07\/arkansas-preacher-forgives-gunman-who-shot-him-during-sermon-we-cant-hold-bitterness-and-anger.html","title":{"rendered":"Arkansas Preacher Forgives Gunman Who Shot Him During Sermon: &#8216;We can&#8217;t hold bitterness and anger&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_11031\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11031\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11031\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2024\/07\/pastor-shot-forgives-attacher_credit-THV11-YouTube.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11031\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">THV11 \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Reverend Larry Oneal Walker spends every Sunday preaching the gospel at a busy intersection in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He has been preaching for 50 years and street preaching for 15 years. On June 2nd while he was preaching, a gunman approached him and opened fire. In a new interview with Fox News, Walker recounted the story and says that he has forgiven the gunman.<\/p>\n<p>Walker recalled preaching at the busy intersection on June 2nd, just as he does every Sunday, when a man approached him and attempted to grab his microphone. When Walker refused, the man told him he had a gun. The two struggled before the man shot him. &#8220;I fell to the ground, checked my side with a handful of blood. The next thing I did was put my hands on my head and\u00a0started praying,&#8221; Walker said. In the interview, Walker revealed that he has forgiven the man, citing John 3:16, &#8220;For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.&#8221; The preacher said, &#8220;As\u00a0a Christian, we must forgive one another. We can&#8217;t hold bitterness and anger and strife in our hearts against one another.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Doctors told Walker that it was a &#8220;miracle&#8221; that the bullet did not hit any of his vital organs. &#8220;I see miracles all the time, all the time. That&#8217;s why I said, &#8216;I cannot die. I will not die. I can&#8217;t get sick. I will not get sick because the Lord has given me life,'&#8221; he said. Walker&#8217;s daughter, LaKeisa Walker, recalled the horrific moment when she got the call with the news that her father had been shot. &#8220;We were standing on the scripture that, \u2018No weapon formed against you shall prosper,\u2019 so we believed that that was a weapon formed against him, but it did not prosper\u2026 God manifested a healing, a miracle through him that day,&#8221; she told Fox News. Not only has her father&#8217;s story touched many lives in Arkansas, it has touched her community in Texas as well. &#8220;They are just like, \u2018That was God.\u2019 It strengthened not only my faith, but the whole community,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>The gunman, identified as 20-year-old Latarryes Bush, is being held without bond, pending his initial court appearance in North Little Rock District Court, according to the North Little Rock Police Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reverend Larry Oneal Walker spends every Sunday preaching the gospel at a busy intersection in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He has been preaching for 50 years and street preaching for 15 years. On June 2nd while he was preaching, a gunman approached him and opened fire. In a new interview with Fox News, Walker recounted&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":11031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Arkansas Preacher Forgives Gunman Who Shot Him During Sermon: &#039;We can&#039;t hold bitterness and anger&#039;<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Reverend Larry Oneal Walker says he forgives the man that shot him while he was street preaching.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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