Arkansas preacher forgives man who shot him on street

The Rev. Larry Oneal Walker, a street preacher in North Little Rock, Ark., has chosen to forgive the gunman who shot him recently while he was speaking.

Walker told news outlets that a man aggressively approached him and attempted to grab his microphone.  When Walker told the man he could not have it, the man said he had a gun. The two struggled, and the man shot him.

“I fell to the ground, checked my side with a handful of blood,” Walker said. “The next thing I did was put my hands on my head and starting praying.”

Walker said he forgives the man who shot him, citing John 3:16. “As a Christian, we must forgive one another,” he said. “We can’t hold bitterness and anger and strife in our hearts against one another.”

Walker said doctors told him the manner in which the bullet entered the side of his body was “a miracle,” because it grazed past his vital organs. “I see miracles all the time, all the time,” he said. “That’s why I said, ‘I cannot die. I will not die. I can’t get sick. I will not get sick, because the Lord has given me life.’”

His daughter, LaKeisa Walker,, said it was a horrific moment when she answered the phone and learned that her father had been shot.

“We were standing on the scripture that, ‘No weapon formed against you shall prosper,’ so we believed that that was a weapon formed against him, but it did not prosper,” she said. “God manifested a healing, a miracle through him that day.”

She said her father’s story touched not just his Arkansas community but hers in Texas as well. “They are just like, ‘That was God,”” she said “It strengthened not only my faith but the whole community.”

Walker has been preaching for the past 50 years and started street preaching 15 years ago. “This is why our nation has been so strong, because we believe in the Almighty God,” he said.

–Dwight  Widaman