A not so random Luke

“What, after all, is Apollos?  And what is Paul?  Only servants, through whom you came to believe – as the Lord has assigned to each his task.”  1 Corinthians 3:5 NIV

Good Christian brothers have a way of being evangelically nosey.  If you have friends who love you enough to challenge you it is a blessed state even though it can seem uncomfortable at times.  My first experience with being accountable to other men started before I realized I was being accounted for.

A long time ago a group of men from our church were putting together a trip to a Promise Keepers Conference in Denver, Colorado.  They had me on a list before I knew there was a list.  I had seen groups of men go and return with their faith lit up.  It was a little intimidating but also something I wanted to experience.  They always appointed one man to share about the experience at the Sunday service, usually less than 8 hours or so after they got back into town.  That was always powerful.

Long story short, I ended up on a bus with about 50 other men.  For some reason once we were all on board, the bus did not leave right away.  Mary was still standing outside with our girls.  Aly was too young to notice but Jordyn was ticked off.  She did not want me to leave, and her protest was hard to watch.  I remember one of the men talking about how sad she looked and how hard it must have been to leave her.  He went on for a while.  That man was sitting next to me.  I choked out “she’s mine” and he finally stopped.  Our pastor tried to help her and told her I would come back an even better dad.  I remember fire shooting from her eyes as she let him know I was already a good dad.  She was too young to realize that God wanted to do some heart renovation.

We walked into a stadium of around 15,000 men already singing “How great thou art” and I started crying and didn’t really stop.  Prior to that day I was not very emotional.  Since that day I melt into a complete mess – often.  Just ask my daughter.  She says I look like a sad basset hound.    

I went to a merchandise table and picked out a cap as a souvenir.  I got back to my seat and started to regret my choice. I liked a different one that I had seen.  After a bit I went back to see if I could switch and they let me.  As I was walking back to my seat I heard someone call my name.  It was a young man named Luke.  He grew up in Scott City, Kansas where Mary and I lived for our first professional job.  I used to spend entire weekends with him and pretty much all of the kids his age in that town.  Some parents literally dropped their kids off at our house if the gym was not open yet.

Luke and I had a reunion that day.  It turns out I was as much a part of his memories growing up as he was of my memories of the town where Mary and I started our family.  It was beautiful and really something I needed to hear at the time.  Moving beyond that first job was beneficial for our family.   It was hard spending all of those hours away from your family running the activities that helped other people’s families spend their time together.  The new job was far better for my family.  But the type of work and time with kids was better in Scott City and I missed it.  Luke had no idea what he did for me that day, but it put me in a better mindset about where God had taken us.  When I got back to my seat one of my new brothers in Christ just looked up and asked if I had the right hat now.  I did. 

I mentioned that someone always spoke at church to summarize the trip.  Late in the weekend I said out loud “I can’t believe someone is going to have to get up and describe this.”  The man who organized the trip just looked up and said “That’s going to be you my friend.”  I thought he was nuts.  But the next morning I found myself standing in front of a church literally spilling my guts, but with the right hat on.

Do you ever wonder if your role in life is meaningful enough?  It is to somebody.

Can you think of someone who has or had a significant role in your life?  Can you think of someone you have poured yourself into? 

Challenge: Telling me that the interaction that day was random.  There were 15,000 men present and two of them ran into each other during a session when nearly  everyone was seated, one carrying a message even he did not know was needed.  Jesus can use us anywhere and in any way.  Random can be a beautiful thing.