I have a
funny, embarrassing, amazingly wonderful story to tell.
Last week my cell phone rang, which was a new and exciting event because
that obviously never happens. I answered
to hear, “Hello, you have been selected to take the following survey in order
to win a free cruise to the Bahamas!” Ahh, keep talking, automated voice! I like the sound of this. Miss Robot went on to ask me some dumb
questions and I answered by pressing 1, 2, and occasionally 3 on my
keypad. Finally, my shining moment of
success came. She told me that I had
indeed passed the survey, though I wonder what I could have done to fail
it. I had won two tickets to the Bahamas
– woohoo! Then a real voice came on and
she asked me for my name. Well, I
panicked, imagining all of the horrible things these sketchy people do to me if
they found me just by my name. So
naturally I blurted out, “Rachel Gomez,” who is my best friend (sorry to throw
you under the bus like that Rach, love ya!)
The real voice said, “Thank you, Rachel, we will be in contact soon with
the details of your free cruise. Congratulations!” And hung up.
I called Rachel right away, explained the situation, and warned her that
the Russian Mafia could be after her and to take caution the next couple of days. She was pretty forgiving of my little slip
up. I guess that’s one of the reasons I
kind of like her a lot.
So here I was… a week later…
Tuesday, January 31st 2012. I
was walking downstairs where I left my schoolbag just as I heard my cell ringing. I answered it just in time. A man that I guessed was between the ages of
20-35 says, “Hello, Rachel! My name is
Scott Russell. I am a representative of
the Survey Cruise blah, blah…” Okay, the
details are a little lost in my mind.
Hardly important. So I was
thinking, Wow, poor guy, I should just
tell him that I’m not interested in this cruise thing. Or I could just let him do his job and munch
on this delicious dried blueberry rice-cake molasses ball. (My mom is into healthy food these days,
which means we all are). So I let the
guy talk for a while. He told me to stop
him if I have any questions. He had
quite the speech – he told me all about where the cruise leaves and returns,
what’s on the cruise, casinos and pools and blah blah. I was kind of daydreaming and giving him a
few, “Mhmm. Interesting,” comments every
now and then. All of the sudden I got
this feeling. I recognized the feeling
right away and was a little irritated. Really, God?
Right now? You want me to witness
to some telemarketer? You’ve got to be
joking. So I ignored it, or at least
tried, but the feeling just got stronger.
I can’t describe it – it’s like something is literally tugging at your
heart, which pounds faster and faster which each consideration of the crazy
thing the Lord is asking you to do. So
finally, I knew what I had to do. As Jeremiah
20:9 says, “Then I said, ‘I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in
His name.’ But His word was in my heart
like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, I
could not.” When the Spirit is inside of
you telling you to do something, how can you say no to that?
“Uh, actually, I do have a
question,” I interrupted him as he was talking about the different features the
casino has to offer.
“Sure, go ahead!” his chipper voice answered.
“Scott, if you were to die tonight,
do you know where you’d go?” Oh great, Maggie. Go with the cliché “If you died tonight”
Christian pick-up line.
He paused for a moment. “Of course I do,” he said.
“Where would you go?”
“Heaven.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m a good person. I go to church every week and all.”
“How do you define a ‘good
person’?”
“Well that’s just common
sense!” He says as if I had asked him
what color the sky was.
“But I’ve been told that we all
make mistakes, that we’re all sinners.”
“Well of course we’re
human. But you’ve just gotta look back
on your mistakes and feel sorry about them.
That’s enough to get into Heaven.”
“So what about Hitler? What if he looked back on the mistakes he
made and genuinely felt sorry for them?
Would he go to Heaven, then?”
Scott was silent for a moment.
“Hey listen, Scott. I know you probably think I’m crazy, but God
is telling me to talk to you about this right now. Would it be alright if you gave me a minute
of your time to tell you something?”
“Well, sure, go ahead.” Wow, I
definitely thought he was going to hang up on me there. Okay Maggie, here’s the green light, hit that
gas pedal!
I
took a deep breath and told him the Good News from start to finish. I talked about how even what little mistake
in our lifetime is a big enough blotch to keep us from God because He is so
holy and perfect. I told him that God
sent His only Son to live a human life and He never sinned, and then He died so
that we could all live with Him forever.
I was so hyped and pumped with adrenaline I don’t know if I was crying
or laughing or just shouting at the poor guy.
“And you know what’s crazy,
Scott? All you have to do is admit that
being good enough isn’t enough! All you have to do is believe in God and
believe that Jesus is the only way to Him!
God WANTS you, Scott. He has put
it on my heart to tell you this for a reason.”
I breathed again for the first time.
I couldn’t believe that he was still listening to me. “So Scott, do me a favor and just think about
it.”
“I will,” he said. “Thank you, Rachel.” I wanted to cry when he said that. I felt like a hypocrite lying to him about my
name and preaching the Gospel at the same time.
So then I decided to at least come clean about one thing.
“And uh, I don’t think this
cruise thing is actually gonna work out for me.”
He seemed to snap back into
business mode as he asked, “Why not?”
“Well…” just tell the truth to this guy about something, Maggie. I chuckled, “I
don’t think my parents will let me.” And
that was really the truth.
“What?! How old are you?”
Now I was really
embarrassed. “Seventeen,” I admitted.
“Oh! Well you’re not even old enough to go on the
cruise,” He sounded almost sympathetic, which was amusing to me because I
didn’t really care about the cruise at all!
I laughed, “That’s okay, I
really don’t care. But I am sorry for
taking up so much of your time.”
“Oh it’s okay, I actually get
paid by the hour. So basically I’m
getting paid to listen to you talk.”
Oh great, it’s really encouraging
to know that me telling you the Gospel has made such an impact on your life.
“Well
that’s good, I’m glad I didn’t waste your time.
And Scott, guess what?”
“What?”
“Heaven is going to be better
than a million cruises.”
He laughed.
“I really hope to see you there
someday,” I told him. “And I’ll be
praying for you.”
“Thanks again!” he said, and
sounded genuine. We said goodbye.
I’ll never talk to Scott Russell
again, at least in this life. He didn’t
get down on his knees crying and confess his sins over the phone. I’ll never know if he thought I was stupid,
just humorous or if he actually took me seriously. But it doesn’t matter, because we can’t change hearts or save people on
our own. Only the Lord can do that. I did what He wanted me to do; I obeyed the
Spirit’s tugging on my heart, and that’s really all we can do. But isn’t it wonderful to be an instrument in
God’s ultimate plan? I’d do it over
again a thousand times.
No comments:
Post a Comment