As a staff we get together every Monday way earlier than should be legal to make sure all our dominoes are lined up for the week and to pray together. To help us stay connected with campus, a few weeks ago we started taking an hour or two every other week to do something as a staff to reach out to our campus. Today was one of those days. I was not in a good mood or interested in talking with anyone on my staff, let alone anyone on campus.
We broke into three groups and took off with five envelopes each. Open one. Do what it says. Open another. Do what it says. And so on. Be back in an hour. My crew’s first assignment was to prayer walk campus for ten minutes, which means spend the time on campus praying for campus. We went to the Rendezvous building, got some coffee and prayed while watching students go about their day. Needless to say none of the three of us were feeling especially inspired to be proactive and speedy about things. Coffee is good. Company is good. It took longer than ten minutes to pray for ten minutes. Slow happens, especially if I’m involved and it’s not yet noon.
Our second envelope had a crisp Lincoln inside with instructions to pray about how to use it. After a few minutes of praying, two of us had no ideas at all and our third wheel thought we needed to go to the Fine Arts Department on the other side of campus. So much for sitting comfortably sipping my coffee. The breadth of campus and an epic puddle later, we arrived in the Fine Arts lobby where we proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing. We started wondering if we’d heard wrong. It’s not a big place and there’s nothing to spend five bucks on so we scattered a bit wandering around looking for someone to give it to. Right about the point it was becoming awkward to mill around anymore She walked in.
Of our trio, I was the only one who happened to be in a spot to hear what She yelled down the stairs to Her friends. “I just suckered some Christians out of five bucks for breakfast!”
I laughed and wandered back to tell my cohorts the funny. They laughed too. And we all concluded She was the one we were waiting for.
Taking the five bucks we went down and asked if She had just had breakfast purchased for Her. When She said yes, we told Her we are Christians praying about what to do with this five bucks we have and that we thought Jesus wanted Her to know He is alive, well and that He wanted to buy Her lunch too. At first She balked at the money, so we told Her to give it away if She didn’t want it. Obviously touched deeply, She burst into tears in front of Her friends and ran off to the bathroom leaving breakfast behind. Not wanting to embarrass Her, we told Her to have a great day and made our way back to meet up with the rest of our staff.
I have no idea what Jesus was doing in all this but He obviously wanted her attention when He sent two of our groups to give her some cash. I think a lot of people, including Her, don’t want to accept gifts like this not because it’s cash but because of Who the cash is really coming from - Jesus. We never even got Her name but Jesus knows and our prayer is that He would continue to surprise Her with more opportunities to sucker some Christians out of tangible expressions of Jesus’ love for Her.
When’s the last time you got “suckered” into tangibly sharing the love of Jesus with someone?
Out of the ashes...
10 years ago
4 comments:
I love that story, particularly because it illustrates how Jesus loves to LAVISH us with his love and grace. Obviously breakfast was a fluke to her, but to be confronted with a unwarranted gift once again was overwhelming. I forget how he wants to overwhelm us with how Good and Loving he is. Thanks for sharing, Jeremy.
Absolutely. I hate how quickly I forget things like this too. We were talking afterward and Drake mentioned this cool idea. He took some old checks to FCA and had everyone fill out a check to one person for as much money as they wanted since the account had limitless funds. They had checks for billions of dollars. Then he had them write another check to themselves - from Jesus. Only one or two people had a check for more than a grand and several had checks for five or ten dollars.
Telling.
How hard a time we have accepting extravagant gifts. And how obnoxious because the most important - a life connected to God in Jesus - is the most over the top of extravagant possibilities! It's no wonder so many have a hard time believing it's true.
THATS AWESOME!! Keep up the good work!!
Jeremy, are you EVER going to blog again? I keep you on my to-check list, but you never blog. I'm about to take you off my list!
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