The Heart Reader

by Terri Blackstock

  Sam shrugged. “I appreciate that. I guess the gift did a lot of good while it lasted.”

  “But it didn’t do you any good, did it?” Kate asked.

  Irritated, Sam looked up at his wife. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re just gonna quit, like you can’t mention the name Jesus without some supernatural gift. But none of the rest of us have it, and we can do it. There’s still a harvest, Sam.”

  “Hey, you didn’t go out until I taught you how. Until I could feed you their thoughts.”

  “Well, I’ve done it without knowing their thoughts,” she said. “I can do it again. I have the courage. Do you?”

  John looked as if he’d gotten caught in the middle of a family squabble. Defeated, Sam sank back in his chair and said, “What do you want from me, John?”

  “I just wanted to see if you would come to the class tomorrow. Go out with us. Help them get started.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because God touched you, Sam. He had a reason. He blessed you with revelations that the rest of us haven’t had. You know things. And people respect you because you’ve succeeded.”

  “Then how come I feel like a failure?”

  “Because you’re not looking at it with God’s eyes.”

  Sam stayed home from church the next morning, and Kate went alone. He didn’t have the energy or the desire to go. But when she got back from church and told him that thirty-six people had professed Christ that day, he began to feel guilty for his attitude. “I’m going to the class this afternoon,” Kate said. “I wish you would go with me.”

  He hadn’t enjoyed spending Sunday morning in a dark living room, while his wife was worshiping without him. He knew he was being selfish. His brooding was only making him feel worse and was keeping him from the people who mattered most to him. “All right,” he said. “I’ll go with you. But I’m only doing it to show you that this is not going to work.”

  “It will work,” Kate said. “That gift taught you how to care about people. And I don’t think your compassion will disappear just because your radar isn’t picking up their thoughts anymore.” Her gaze softened as she touched his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Tell me your compassion isn’t gone, Sam. I liked being married to someone who cared.”

  Sam wanted to tell her that he was still that person, but he wasn’t sure he was. Would his zeal cool to a lukewarm level as it had been before? Would his heart grow hard again?

  He turned away. Behind him, he heard her heavy sigh. “It’s up to you, Sam. You had a two-week crash course in being like Jesus. Are you gonna throw that back in God’s face?”

  A million answers shot through Sam’s mind, but he wasn’t sure of any of them. He turned around and stared helplessly at her.

  “I know how crushed you must be,” she said softly. “I’m kind of crushed myself. But God has his reasons, Sam. You have to trust him.”

  “John wants me to keep being some kind of leader . . . to tell others how to win souls . . . to act like I know something they don’t know. But I don’t. Not anymore.”

  Kate’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Sam, don’t you care about the lost coin anymore? Doesn’t it matter to you?”

  Sam couldn’t take the sting of her words. He went to the kitchen and grabbed his keys off of the counter. “I’ve got to think,” he said. “I need to be alone. I’ll just . . . meet you at the class.”

  “Will you really be there?” she asked, sounding as if she didn’t carry much hope that he really would. “Do you promise?”

  He hesitated for a long moment, searching her face for the answers he couldn’t find within himself. “I promise.”

  Then, before she could probe deeper, he hurried to the car.

  Sam drove around town for several hours, thinking and praying about the things that had happened to him. For the life of him, he couldn’t understand the Lord’s playing such a cruel trick on him. Why would he have thrust an unwanted gift on him, then taught him to cherish it, only to take it away? It didn’t make sense.

  He pulled up next to a park where children played, and he began to walk the path that wound through the trees. He found a bench in the shade and sat down as joggers ran by, their sneakers thudding on the concrete. On the playground just beyond the running path, children laughed and squealed, and dogs barked.

  There was so much to hear, yet so little. It was all superficial now. He might as well be deaf.

  He checked his watch and saw that it was time to head to the church. He had promised Kate, and he didn’t like to break promises. He wondered if the class members would be able to see right through him. Wouldn’t they know that something inside him had been snatched away? That he didn’t have the “insights” anymore?

  I want to hear like you do, Lord. I want to know what you know.

  But as he ambled back to his car, he felt the hopeless, sick feeling that he would never come close to hearing like that again.

  16

  Sam was stunned when he walked into the classroom that afternoon and saw the number of people who had come to learn how to share their faith. He looked around and guessed that there were at least a hundred people there. Some baby Christians, some who’d been believers for years. Bill and Steve were bringing in extra chairs, and Sam joined in. At least he could do that, he thought.

  When John finally got the class quiet, he searched the room. “Sam, would you come up here for a minute, please?”

  Sam shot John a look that told him he was going too far. He set down the chairs he was carrying and moved to the front of the room.

  “Sam, everybody here knows the success rate you’ve had in telling people about Christ,” John said. “It’s inspired all of us. Now, you can see from the size of this class, the fruit that it’s borne. And I wanted you to stand up here for a minute and tell people what your secret is.”

  Shocked, Sam gaped at his pastor. Why would John humiliate him like this? What did he expect him to say? That he’d had a supernatural gift of hearing peoples’ souls? John stepped closer and lowered his voice. “Sam, tell them what to do. Tell them how to listen. Tell them what to see. You know.”

  Sam’s eyes filled with tears, and his mouth trembled as he shifted from one foot to the other. He met Kate’s hopeful eyes, and she nodded for him to answer. He cleared his throat and tried to speak. His voice cracked as it came out. “Well, basically, the bottom line, I guess, is . . .” He cleared it again. “Well, uh . . . you just . . . listen. Listen to them talk. Look at their faces. Look in their eyes. Touch them. Use your common sense.” Yes, he thought. That was exactly what he had done every time he’d had any success. Something inside him stirred, and he took a step toward the class.

  “If you could just hear with the ears of God, for a day, or a week, or two weeks . . .” He wiped the tears before they could run down his face. “If you could hear what God hears, you’d never forget it.” He stopped and took a deep breath and met Kate’s eyes, then John’s. “There’s not a soul out there who doesn’t have those spiritual needs. You’ve got to learn to look for them.”

  Someone in the back of the room raised her hand, and he nodded for her to speak. “Sam, what would you say is their most common spiritual need?”

  He shrugged and thought the question over for a long moment, juggling the different answers that came to him, trying to decide what the most common and most important ones were. “Well, they need to know that they’re loved, that there’s hope, that there’s healing, that someone’s in control, that they’re not a product of their past, that they can be forgiven, that they can be useful, that they’re made in the image of God . . .” He paused and racked his brain for more.

  But suddenly it came to him. There really was only one answer that filled those needs he’d been naming. The answer he’d been offering for the past two weeks.

  He stood there for a moment as the thought took hold of him. “You know, really,” he said, “I guess the answer to all their questions, the ful
fillment of all of their needs, is Jesus Christ.”

  They were hanging on every word, and he looked around at them as the thought sank deeper. “Really,” he said. “Anybody you walked up to, if you were to ask them what their deepest need was, and if they were to be perfectly honest, if they even knew . . . their answer would be Jesus Christ.”

  He glanced awkwardly at the pastor and saw that John was grinning.

  Encouraged, Sam went on, “So what we need to do is go out there with the knowledge that we have information they don’t have. We can tell them how to fulfill those needs. We can turn their lives around. They all have the same need, and that need is Jesus Christ.”

  “What if they already know Jesus?” someone else asked. “What would their need be then?”

  Sam looked from his wife to his friends, to the people he had led to Christ. And then he knew.

  I want a broken heart.

  I need to be used.

  I’ve wasted all those years.

  He covered his mouth as those tears erupted again. Finally, he managed to speak, “The bottom-line, basic need of every real Christian,” he said, “is to bear fruit like Christ. You can count on it. Every true Christian has that need, whether they want to admit it or not. The Holy Spirit in them, it just yearns for that. And the further they are from fulfilling it, the emptier they are. Jesus cares about filling that emptiness . . . for a lot of reasons. One of them is our own happiness, but the bigger reason is that . . . it’s not about us. It’s about advancing God’s kingdom. We’re about advancing God’s kingdom. And if we aren’t acting like Christ, then we’re missing it. It’s like we’re children of the king, but we’re living in a dirt shack and eating pig food.”

  He saw in their faces that they all understood. He saw the glow of excitement in their eyes, the tears of resolve and commitment.

  “Once you start behaving like Christ, in every area of your life, it’s like moving into the castle,” Sam said. “You know you don’t deserve that joy, but it’s still yours. You are who you are. You have power and the inheritance and all the joy that comes with it. And once you feel that joy . . .” His voice broke off, and he looked down at his feet and struggled to rein in his emotions. “Once you have it, you’ll never want to be without it again.”

  After the class, John suggested that they all go out somewhere and practice sharing their faith before their zeal started to fade. Sam felt that fear he’d had in the beginning, the first day he’d realized he had the gift. But as the people began getting their bags and coats and heading for the church vans, he realized that he had to do better than this. He couldn’t be a coward. He knew more than they knew. He had been enlightened. And tonight, the truth had come from his very own lips. The further he was from being like Christ, the more unhappy he would be. He knew it firsthand. How could he go back now?

  John patted him on the back as they left the room. “So where do you think we ought to go?” he asked.

  Sam thought for a moment. “Let’s go to the bus station,” he said. “There’s a bus due in about ten minutes. And those people need the Lord.”

  17

  Needing to be alone, Sam took his own car and followed behind the vans to the station. As he drove, he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. What would they say when they saw what a failure he was? Would they all quit? Would they laugh at him?

  The vans parked, and his church friends began filing out just as a bus pulled up. He sat in his car for a moment as the weary travelers began to get off the bus. His eyes burned with fear, and his heart pounded. As he got out, he breathed a silent prayer, a prayer for courage, a prayer for confidence, a prayer that he could hear as the Holy Spirit heard.

  The group of them broke up, and each approached someone and struck up a conversation. Sam stood with his hands in his pockets and listened as he heard various ones around the room explaining Christ in the best way they knew how. He saw an older man standing near the glass doors, looking out as if waiting for someone to pick him up. But no one ever came. Sam looked around, helplessly wondering whom—he should approach, what he should say to them when he couldn’t confidently know what their needs were. Then he remembered the theory he’d come to in the classroom a little earlier . . . that every lost soul’s need was the same.

  Deciding to approach the man under that premise, he went to the door. “Hey, there,” he said as he reached him. “How ya doing?”

  The man nodded and smiled weakly.

  “My name’s Sam Bennett,” he said, reaching out to shake his hand. “You waiting for somebody?”

  “I thought I was,” the rumpled old man said. “I thought my daughter was coming to get me, but—” His eyes reddened with emotion, and he looked away. “We don’t get along so well and . . . I didn’t really know if she’d come or not.”

  Sam’s heart began to melt, and he realized that he was hearing the need. He looked through the glass door in the direction where the man had been looking. “Maybe she’ll still come,” he said. “Maybe she’s just late.”

  The old man’s mouth trembled as he shook his head. “No, I don’t think she’s gonna come. See, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in touch with her, and well . . . I guess I crossed over the point where there’s no goin’ back.”

  Sam met his eyes and remembered the lost things of Luke 15. The lost coin . . . the lost sheep . . . the lost son. The poignancy of those stories assaulted him anew, and he realized that the Holy Spirit had reminded him so that he could tell the man. “There’s never a point where you’ve gone too far,” he said.

  The man breathed in a heavy, soul-deep sigh. “Oh, yeah there is. And I crossed it a long time ago.” Sam looked out the door again, wishing the daughter would come to show the man that there was such a thing as forgiveness and new life. But even if she didn’t, there was someone else who would. There was a father, scanning the horizon for the sight of that lost son. “Why don’t you let me give you a ride?” Sam asked. “I have my car out here.”

  “Weren’t you waiting for somebody else?”

  Sam shrugged. “Sort of. But they didn’t show up either.” The man looked at Sam with new eyes, as if he could understand how it felt to be rejected. “Come on. I’ll take you to wherever you need to go.”

  “Well, I appreciate that, sir,” the man said. “Don’t you need to tell your friends?”

  Sam looked over toward Kate. She was watching him and smiling. He winked and nodded that he was leaving. “It’s okay,” he said. “They’ve got another way home.”

  As he got into the car with the old man and asked where he wanted to go, he realized that the needs were right there on the surface . . . in the man’s face . . . in his stance . . . in the way he carried himself . . . in his words. And what he couldn’t hear, the Holy Spirit could. He could do what Sam couldn’t.

  This man needed Jesus Christ.

  That was all he needed to know.

  MINISTERS!

  If you’d like to challenge your church

  leaders and members to be heart readers,

  go to www.theheartreader.com

  or www.wpublishinggroup.com.

  There you’ll find questions and exercises designed to help your members

  • see the real needs of the people around them

  • learn the bare bones basics of sharing their faith and

  • understand the natural obstacles to witnessing.

  All this told through an easy-to-understand story your members can relate to.