Yesterday, I found myself thinking about various encounters I have had with people who – how can I put it? – did not find my company appealing, but with whom I later enjoyed welcome, good conversation, and even shared faith. I can remember my reservations in meeting them (I am an introvert by nature and upbringing), and how my first interactions with them seemed disastrous.
There was K. I only met K because his good friend asked me if I would visit him in the hospital. “K is really bad,” he told me, “and might not make it. And he isn’t saved. Would you go and talk to him?” I went to the hospital, but when I arrived outside K’s third floor room, I could hear him laughing and conversing with a visitor. I decided to wait outside rather than interrupting this meeting of friends.
When his friend left, I entered the room, smiled, and introduced myself. “Hi,” I said. “I am Shayne Looper. I am the pastor at L’s church, and L asked me to stop and see how you are doing.”
The result was immediate—and unsettling. K turned over on his side, his face turned away from me, and would not even acknowledge my presence. I think he took me – the pastor – as the harbinger of death. I spoke to him for another thirty seconds, but he acted like he could not hear me. So, I said it was nice to meet him (though this was not strictly true) and said goodbye.
A few months later, L asked me to go with him to K’s home and talk to him about the Lord. I was not, as you can imagine, eager to repeat the debacle of the hospital room, but I agreed to go. When we arrived, K’s wife opened the door and invited us in. He said hello and, without reference to our previous introduction, we chatted about nothing for a few minutes.
When I got up my courage, I asked K what he thought about God and if he knew anything about Jesus. I was surprised to find that both K and his wife wanted to come to God and trust in Christ—and did so right then! Together, they attended our church until his death, and she continued after that.
Even before K, there was W. He was an over-the-road, rough-around-the-edges (and maybe rough all the way to the center) retired truck driver. His wife attended our church. Whenever I went to their home to visit, W. would see me coming and would leave the room. Once, after I had made a few visits, he remained in the room and even joined in the conversation. But when he thought it was getting time for me to leave (that is, when he thought I was about to pray), he would quietly disappear. This went on for at least a year. I knew I was making progress when W started staying in the room through my brief prayers.
After four or five years, when W and I had a comfortable (if not good) relationship, I went to a conference in a city about 150 miles away. As soon as the clerk at the hotel heard my name, even before I checked in, I was told that there was a message for me. It stated that W had experienced a sudden health crisis and was not expected to live. I asked the clerk to cancel my reservation, and I drove back to my city and to the hospital.
W was about to be taken to surgery and was already prepped. I asked if I could have a moment to pray with him before they took him, and that moment was granted. I asked W if he was ready to change and become God’s person, but he was unable to speak. I said to him, “W, if you want to put your trust in Jesus Christ, blink your eyes.” He convincingly blinked both eyes, so I gave him some instructions, urged him to talk to God, and prayed with him.
I never saw W again. He did not survive the surgery. I hope to see him one day.
Then there was B. As a hospice chaplain, I went to meet and pray for her mother. B answered the door, acting as if I and the friend who was with me might be ax murderers (or something still less desirable). She left us with her mother and went into the kitchen, where she made a crazy amount of noise. It was clear that she did not want her mother listening to us.
I visited many times and, each time that B was there, she acted like she hated me. That, of course, could have been my imagination, but one day I met her younger sister who told me straight out: “B hates you.” I couldn’t imagine why. We had never met before I went to visit her terminally ill mother.
I saw B in a Walmart a few months after her mother died. I turned down an aisle and caught a glimpse of her at the other end. I thought that I should go and speak to her, but I chickened out and slinked into a different aisle. I didn’t see her again for several years. Then, one Sunday morning, she showed up at our church! To my amazement, she kept coming. The day came when I was visiting and praying with her. Whenever I got ready to hang up the phone or leave her apartment in the senior living complex, B would say, “I love you, pastor!”
I share these stories because some of us think that it must be too late for our family members and other loved ones to come to God. Others of us might be thinking, “It’s too late for me. Even if I wanted to, why would God want me?” In both cases, we would be wrong. It is never too late for the God who can move through time as we move through space, “the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”
I have seen him do some remarkable things. You can too.
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