2/22//19 Andy
I approached two guys sitting at a table at Starbucks and
asked if either of them would be willing to record a conversation in response
to an interesting question.
One of them, Andy, said he had some time and would give it a
try, and seemed even more interested and yet challenged when he heard my
question – “What do you think happens after we die, and whatever beliefs or
doubts you have, how did you get there?”
After a half hour or so of listening as he went through a careful
and heartfelt process of self-reflection on his own beliefs and how he had
reached his conclusions about God, I reached a few conclusions of my own about Andy. Now I know the Bible says “People look at the
outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart”. So I know I may be wrong in my assessment and
it’s not my place to judge, but we can’t make our way through life without
making some kind of discernments or observations about the people we interact
with that help guide our response.
Andy grew up Catholic and feels blessed to have grown up in
an environment where he learned good morals and values, an accountability to
God and a trust in Jesus “as his Lord and Savior” – a phrase he heard from some
Christian punk rockers in the ‘90’s. He
prays from time to time but no longer attends church and doesn’t read the Bible.
I would describe Andy as having a heart for God, maybe
similar to those described by Jesus when He gave instructions to His disciples
as He sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of Heaven in Matthew 10: “Whatever
town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at
their house until you leave. As you enter the home, give it your greeting. If
the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace
return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave
that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”
Like those who welcomed the disciples and listened to their
words, I found Andy to be someone full of gratitude and a love for life, a hope
for heaven, a desire for God, and very willing to hear more about Him. Yet I also found him to be someone who has
listened more to what the world says about God than what God reveals about
Himself. The mistake, I think, is that
he has come to view the Bible more as man’s attempt to define God rather than
God’s revelation of Himself to man.
As much as a person might have a heart for God, if we take
the Bible out of the equation we are left with only our own imagination or the
overcrowded buffet table of man’s ideas about God to choose from. We might keep the first commandment to love
God, but we don’t get very far if we violate the second commandment against creating
God in man’s image. All we are left with
is the worship of a false idol of our own or the world’s imagining.
For many of my outreach conversations with people, I feel I
must “shake the dust off my feet” and move on to where the message of God’s
kingdom is more welcome, yet with the hope that seeds of truth sown might later
begin to grow.
Not so with Andy. I
see him as someone who is willing to listen to the message of the Kingdom and
give the Bible a fair hearing. I hope
and pray we will meet again to see if his heart for God might turn into a love
for God’s word and a willingness to follow it.
Thanks again, Andy, for your honesty and heartfelt effort at
self-reflection, and your willingness to allow others to “sit-in” on that process
through the video. It can be seen at https://youtu.be/XYlP-s-3pSU on my YouTube channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment