Ever heard the song
“Highwayman” ?
It’s sung by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash and its alluring melody and instrumentation woos you as you listen, wanting to believe, but the trouble comes as you realize it’s about reincarnation.
“But I am still alive. I was a sailor. I was born … I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can. Perhaps I may become a highwayman again. Or I may simply be a single drop of rain. But I will remain. And I’ll be back again”
But our faith isn’t about alluring, it’s about John 3:8
Do we try to come up with wording or methods that lure converts to our churches? Isn’t this what social relevance is all about? The move to make ‘our church’ more palatable to the masses?
John 6: tells a different story.
In the past 7 days another transit operator boarded my coach, which just at that moment was empty except for he and I. I’ve known for quite sometime but have yet had a true connection with him. He’s a friend on Facebook, and my posts are not shy of references to my faith, and he’s LIKED those ones as well as others. He was immersed in an honest moment, no other reason to tell me, a person he barely knows of such a personal piece of news. I’m shy about telling the details. It’s a huge life changing monster out of his control. I immediately felt humbled by it, and I have to admit that I immediately ventured toward making light of his plight. I told him of a similar sort of predicament I’d been in once upon a time. My idea was to say, “you’ll get to the other side of this… and laugh”
The next time I saw him I joked with him about it. He didn’t follow that line at all. He told me more sobering, and confusing things, and I dumped my trivializing and listened, and interacted. I felt all the more humbled, but I also saw the character of this man as he faced the situation head-on with grace and dignity, determination and fairness.
As I walked off to my bus I felt that all my posturing of faith in Christ meant nothing if I couldn’t share, “Jesus is the Answer” with him. I’d tossed other ideas out to him, and he told me of his foray into those, with the connotation of ‘still not enough’. I felt that Jesus was inadequate, what was I going to do? Tell him to find a church somewhere? How would he find Jesus? I prayed, I brought my wishy washy faith to God, and confessed my mistrust that he’d meet with this man. I don’t know the words that came, but I know the result. I wrote him,
“Seriously, it’s always good to talk to somebody who’s dealing with real life, and doing it with all their heart! I’m thinking maybe I ventured too quickly into seeing the lighter side of YOUR pain by talking about my past pain.But your grace with me (I don’t know another word for it) patience. Anyways your patience with me is appreciated, and your grace toward —- is heartening, my 2 minute break is over, so we’ll have to talk again soon. It’s no secret, I hope, that I pray, and I have been dong so this morning g for you…”
his response:
“Thank You” with a symbol of the cross beside it.
As I prayed scriptures came, and I shared those with him. With my tears came faith for his situation, and a call for God to come through. Just like in John 4: when the Samaritan woman ran to town and said, “come and see…” The townspeople did come and see, and the wonderful verse tells it all:
John 4:42 They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world.”
He received those with thanks, and thanked me for my friendship. And I’m still moved. I am hopelessly dependent on the move of the Holy Spirit here, to John 3:8 kind of miraculously save and deliver.
I hope my ambiguity on the exact topic hasn’t left this too vague. My faith was tested, and failed, but God heard my prayer and gave me the faith to pray, and to interact. Pauls words come to mind:
Ephesians 6:19 and [pray] also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel,
it’s not about fancy words, or clever delivery, but today I had a case of the doubts in the face of so much real need. God supplied in answer to prayer.
