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.
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. “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 started praying,” Walker said. In the interview, Walker revealed that he has forgiven the man, citing John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son.” The preacher said, “As a Christian, we must forgive one another. We can’t hold bitterness and anger and strife in our hearts against one another.”
Doctors told Walker that it was a “miracle” that the bullet did not hit any of his vital organs. “I see miracles all the time, all the time. 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,'” he said. Walker’s daughter, LaKeisa Walker, recalled the horrific moment when she got the call with the news 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… God manifested a healing, a miracle through him that day,” she told Fox News. Not only has her father’s story touched many lives in Arkansas, it has touched her community in Texas as well. “They are just like, ‘That was God.’ It strengthened not only my faith, but the whole community,” she said.
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.