“Because something told me that you were alone and you needed it. And to be perfectly honest, I needed an opening so I could explain to you that you’re not really alone, that there’s someone who loved you enough to die for you. And because he loves you so much, he sat me down at the table next to you, so I could come and tell you.”
As if he was the one to whom John referred, she looked over at Sam, still alone at the next table. “Someone loved me?” she asked, almost disgusted. “Who?”
“Jesus Christ,” he said.
Her face changed, and he saw the cynicism that lined her young face. “Oh, come on. Give me a break.”
“No, listen to me,” John said, brooking no debate. “You are not alone. You may feel like you are, but there are people out there who can love you and care for you, and the only reason they can is that Jesus does.”
She rubbed her stomach. “If only I could believe that.”
“You can believe it,” he said. “It’s true.”
The woman’s face began to redden, and it twisted as she began to weep. The little girl set down her spoon and stared up at her mother. John touched the woman’s shoulder. “Ma’am, this doesn’t have to go on, this feeling of solitude. When you bring that baby into the world today, you could bring it into a Christian home.”
She looked down at her stomach, then over at the child. “I’ve never taken her to church,” she said. “I’ve never taught her anything about the Bible. There’s so much I would have to learn.”
“You don’t have to learn anything before you come to Christ,” John said. “All you have to do is pray and tell Jesus that you want him to take over your life. Do you want to do that?”
Still weeping, she nodded her head. “It couldn’t be any worse than it’s been.” She breathed in a sob. “Yes, I’d like to do that.”
John met Sam’s eyes, quietly saying, See? You could do this. But Sam knew better—John was a natural. “Let’s pray,” John said.
She looked awkwardly around her. “I don’t know if I can do this right out in public . . .”
“He died right out in public,” John whispered. “Don’t let embarrassment keep you from that kind of love.”
John closed his eyes, and the woman followed. Sam listened as John began to lead her in prayer, and he felt the thrill of witnessing a new convert being ushered into the kingdom of God. He couldn’t believe it had been so easy. He’d heard stories of doors being slammed in people’s faces, persecutions, even. He’d read about that in the Bible.
Then the thought came to him. I’ve made it easy for you, Sam.
He drew in a deep breath as they came out of the prayer, and the tension on the woman’s face began to drain away as she laughed through her tears. She was not much more than a teenager, he realized. Practically a kid. About his daughter’s age. His heart jolted at the thought of Jennifer, a college freshman, in labor with no one beside her. How could that have happened to this young woman?
John kept talking to her, and after a moment, he got up and went to the pay phone. Sam knew he was calling his wife to come and get the little girl. He wondered how often John put Christ’s love into such concrete action. Maybe that was what they were all supposed to do, he thought. Maybe Christians, like doctors, were supposed to heal fatal spiritual ills, terminal diseases of the soul.
When John came back, he put Sam on the spot. “Sam, come here for a minute. I want you to meet the newest member of our family.”
Sam got awkwardly up and reached for her hand.
“You’re brothers?” the woman asked.
“No,” Sam said quickly.
“Brothers in Christ,” John said. “And now you’re our sister.”
Her eyes filled again as she laughed softly. “Oh. Right.”
Sam sat down at the table. He didn’t know what to say.
The child stood up, revealing her wet pants. “Uh-oh,” she said. “We haven’t quite got this potty training down.” She got to her feet, her hand on her stomach. “Would you all excuse me for a minute, please? I’m leaving my bag here.”
Sam looked under the table and saw her duffel bag for the hospital. She carried a diaper bag and purse on her shoulder.
“If you’d just keep an eye on it, I’ll be right back.”
“Sure,” John said. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve probably got hours yet. I’ll just yell out if anything happens.”
They disappeared into the rest room, and John grinned back at Sam. “So what do you think about that?”
“I think that was amazing,” Sam said. “The most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You could do it too. It’s very simple. You know their needs. Address them.”
But Sam was still skeptical. It was one thing to know their needs. It was another to meet them.
“I’m so dirty.” The voice behind him was as loud as if it had been whispered right in his ear, and he turned around and saw the man sitting there, in a clean, pressed suit, reading the newspaper as if nothing was wrong. “I can’t stand my life anymore. I’m filthy, tainted.”
Sam turned back to John. “The man behind me,” he said. “He said he feels dirty, tainted, filthy.”
John’s serious eyes locked into his. “Go tell him, Sam. Tell him how he can get clean.”
Sam closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want this responsibility on him, this accountability. He was getting a headache. He needed to lie down.
“Go on,” the pastor urged.
Sam rubbed his temples. “You better do it,” he said. “You’ve had more experience with this sort of thing.”
“Sam, just talk to him.”
“What do I say?” he whispered harshly. “How do I lead in? ‘Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing your soul crying out?’”
“No,” John said. “Just tell him what happened to you.”
Sam sighed as the woman and her child made their way back to the table. John obviously needed to keep talking to her about her newfound faith and the baby on the way. Sam realized he was stuck. If he didn’t do it, his pastor would think he was a coward. Slowly, he got up and turned to the chair behind him. “Excuse me,” he said.
The man looked up from the newspaper. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Sam said. “I’m just . . . well, you see, I kind of have this gift, and I can sort of . . . hear things . . .”
The man’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t following what Sam was saying. Sam put his hand on the chair and started to pull it out. “May I?”
The man leaned suspiciously back in his chair. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Well, you see, I couldn’t help overhearing . . .”
The man was quiet, waiting.
“. . . something you may not realize you said.” Sam stopped and realized he was taking the wrong route. He didn’t need to be quite that direct.
“I’m sorry; I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. Uh . . . look, man.” He leaned his elbows on the table and got closer, keeping his voice confidentially low. “This isn’t going to make any sense to you, but I felt like I should come over here and tell you something about myself.”
The man looked as if he was bracing himself for a sales pitch.
“A few years ago . . . I did some things . . . saw some things . . . put some things into my head that . . . well, they just made me feel really dirty.”
The man’s face changed. Sam knew he had his attention.
“I don’t want to go into the details,” Sam said. “But let me just say that I really felt that I couldn’t stand my life anymore. I got to the point where I thought that if there was a God, he must be awfully disgusted with me.”
The man sat stone still . . . listening.
“And then one night I was sitting at home with my wife, who’s this strong Christian woman, and she’d been dragging me to church by the hand for years and years . . . and I just about lost it. I s
tarted to cry, and I couldn’t stop crying, and I began to confess to her everything I was doing. My wife . . . she got up and got her Bible and opened it to this one section I’d never seen before.” He shrugged. “Of course I hadn’t seen it. I never listened in church, never paid any attention, never read it. But it said that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
The man looked down at the table. His hands were trembling. Sam was getting to him, he thought. It was working.
“And it really got to me, you see, because there I was telling my wife my darkest secrets, not thinking even she could forgive me, and there she was telling me that somebody died for me, to take my punishment for all the filth, even when I was his enemy.”
The man’s nostrils flared. He closed his hands into fists over his newspaper and brought his eyes up to Sam’s. “Are you finished?”
Sam’s heart sank. He’d thought he had him, but now it was clear he’d gone too far. “Well . . . yes. I just wanted to tell you because—”
“Then would you kindly let me eat in peace?” the man bit out.
Sam didn’t know what to say. Confused, he scooted his chair back. “Yeah, sure. Okay. But . . . if you ever want to talk or anything . . .”
“To you?” the man asked with disdain. He almost laughed. “Thanks, pal. But if I ever needed to talk, it wouldn’t be to some born-again sleazeball who peddles his religion like cheap watches. I have a life.” With that, he folded his newspaper and got up.
Sam dug into his pocket for his business card. “Look, just take this, in case you ever—”
“Didn’t you hear me, pal? I don’t need what you’re selling.”
“Yes, you do.”
The man laughed then. Shaking his head, he tossed down some money for his meal, and bolted out the door.
Sam felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He stayed at the table, running the conversation back through his mind, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong.
Later, when John’s wife had come and taken the little girl home and her mother had gone for a walk to speed up her contractions, Sam and John left the diner. “I guess I failed pretty miserably in there, didn’t I?” Sam asked.
John gave him an amused look across the hood of the car. “You’ve got to be kidding. You were great.”
“Great? That guy practically ran out. It couldn’t have gone worse.”
“But that’s not your fault. The Lord revealed the man’s need to you, and you were obedient and responded. If he rejected it, he’s accountable to God, not you.”
“How do you know that?”
Before Sam knew what was happening, John had whipped a small Bible out of his shirt pocket and was turning to Ezekiel. “Says so right here. Chapter 3 of Ezekiel.” He slid the Bible across the seat. “Read for yourself. Verses 18 and 19.”
Sam took the Bible and began to mumble the words. “When I say to a wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.”
Sam stopped on the last word, suddenly remembering the woman with the red braid this morning, walking through traffic with no regard for her life. He hadn’t told her what he knew. If she’d been hit by that skidding car and died without knowing Christ, he would have been accountable.
He felt the blood drain from his face.
“Read on,” John said. “Just the next verse.”
“But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways . . .”
“Like the guy who just rejected you,” John interjected.
“. . . he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.”
“You won’t be accountable,” John said, “because you warned him.”
“Well, that’s fine for me,” Sam said. “But what about him? Why wouldn’t he listen if I addressed his real spiritual need?”
“Some won’t ever listen,” John said. “There will always be those who reject the truth. That can’t stop us.”
Sam closed his eyes and leaned his head against the window. “I still feel like a failure. If I’d gone about it another way . . . approached him differently. . . What good is this gift?”
“It did the woman good,” John said. “I wouldn’t have known what she needed if you hadn’t told me.”
“Still . . . you were right about me, John. I’m pitiful. I’ve been a Christian for ten years, and not once in those ten years have I ever led anybody to Christ. Until about an hour ago, I never even wanted to.”
“Well, don’t look now, but I think things are about to change. With this gift, God is leading you straight to the front lines.”
Sam was silent for several moments. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this, John.”
“Sam, God doesn’t wait for you to be ready. Sometimes he just throws you in. It’s not a real hard thing, talking about Jesus. You don’t have to take a class; you don’t have to read a book; you don’t have to memorize an outline. All you really have to do is tell them what he did for you. That’s the best testimony there is.”
Sam nodded his head slowly and wished that he had the confidence and passion that John had. Instead, he had a sick feeling that he was going to let the Lord down. The angels in heaven were probably bracing themselves in dread at all the damage he was about to do.
5
AFTER MUCH PERSUADING, JOHN CONVINCED SAM to join him on his hospital visits. As they walked across the street, Sam began to feel uneasy again. “You know, I’m not very good with sick people. I hope you plan to do all the talking. I think I almost gave that guy at the diner a heart attack. His face was beet red when I got through with him.”
John didn’t seem worried. In fact, Sam could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “One of my greatest frustrations as a pastor is when members of my flock are about to die and I can’t look into their spirit and tell for sure if they know the Lord. That’s why I want you to come. I think it would help me a lot if you could just tell me what you hear when you sit in their room, so I’ll know which way to lead the conversation and how to address their needs.”
“But I can’t just repeat back to you what I hear,” Sam said. “They’d get wise.”
“Wise to what?” John asked. “Wise to the fact that someone knew their spiritual needs? That last guy is proof that they’re not even thinking these things consciously. You could probably repeat them right back to them verbatim, and they may not even recognize them.”
“You recognized them when I repeated your needs.”
“But I’m already a Christian. I’ve prayed about what you heard. I’ve looked my problems in the face.”
Sam couldn’t help remembering the needs he’d heard in John. “You aren’t really thinking about leaving the ministry, are you?”
Several moments passed before John answered. “Yeah, actually, I am.”
“Why? I thought you loved preaching.”
“I love serving the Lord. But if I’m not making an impact, then I need to get out of it. It’s a frustrating profession sometimes, Sam. You stand up in that pulpit, pouring out your heart and soul, and half the congregation just stares back at you with glassy eyes, trying to stifle their yawns. Five minutes after the sermon they can’t remember what your main point was. Churches are supposed to grow. Christians are supposed to bear fruit. If neither of those things is happening in my church, then I’m failing.”
Sam gaped at him. “I don’t get it. You’re not failing—how do you figure that? Our church is vibrant. It’s great.”
John breathed a cynical laugh. “Yeah, we did win the citywide basketball championship this year, and our softball team is shaping up to be a winner. But that’s not what I’m going for. It’s all those pesky lost souls that are troubling me. And all those yawning Christians who don’t care about them.”
“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “I care. But this stuff is har
d. I mean, you just said that lots of people don’t even know their deepest spiritual needs. If they don’t, what’s the point? I mean, what can you really do? Even this so-called gift I have, how does it help if they don’t recognize their needs when I mention them?”
“The point is that their soul would recognize them. Something inside them would stir, whether they admit it or not. These people we’re going to visit in the hospital . . . some of them are scared. They need to know what Jesus can do to help them.”
“But don’t they have enough problems, being sick and all?”
John shot him a look. “Some of them are going to die. This may be their last chance. That’s part of the reason why I insist on visiting members of my church. I don’t want anybody to die without understanding completely.”
Sam got quiet, thoughtful, as they walked the rest of the way to the hospital. His wife worked here as a nurse, and as they went in, he was assaulted with the mingling smells of sterility and disease. He knew other people couldn’t smell it, but it always seemed to jump out at him. That was why he avoided hospitals like the plague. His mother had died in a room on the fourth floor, and he hadn’t been back since. Whenever he picked up Kate, she met him in the parking lot.
He wondered what his wife would say about his being here now, or about this bizarre gift he’d been cursed with. This morning, when they’d had coffee together, he hadn’t known about it. Why hadn’t he heard her needs? His mind ran back through their conversation.
I just want to be useful.
The words scampered through his mind. He’d heard her say that, but now that he thought about it, he hadn’t been looking at her. Had she really said it, or had she felt it?
John glanced over at him as they reached the elevator. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I’m fine. I was just wondering if I should tell Kate.”
“Why keep it secret from her?”
“I don’t know. She might feel violated, knowing I can hear right into her.”
John grinned. “Are you kidding? That’s every woman’s dream. To know that her life partner can hear her deepest needs. The problem will be convincing her, but if you do what you did with me this morning, she’ll believe you.”
Miracles Page 4
