There are moments when I am headed to the cigar shop with the deliberate plan to be on mission and look for someone to share with and love on. And there are other moments, if I am honest, when I am headed to the cigar shop just to smoke a cigar and get away from life for a bit.
This particular evening, I was headed to the cigar shop just to get away. I needed some peace and quiet.
It had been a crazy week. Long meetings. Lots of frustration. One of those weeks where people were driving me crazy. Let me be more specific. Church people were driving me crazy. I needed some silence. I needed some alone time. I needed a break.
As I walked from the parking lot towards the door of the cigar store, I found myself in a small front porch area where people gather when the weather is nice to enjoy their cigars outside. As I am walking through that crowd, someone says to me – “Hey – you in the black hat – could I speak to you for a minute?”
Since I had on the black hat, I turned and said “Are you talking to me?” When he nodded yes, I moved his way and sat in the chair next to him on the outdoor porch.
I will never forget how our conversation started.
He looked at me and said “Are you the God guy?”
That was a first. I have been called many things in my time, but to my knowledge, this was new ground. I was not sure how to respond. I paused for a moment, looked at him and said, “Well – yes – I believe in God. I try to follow Jesus. I am a God guy.”
The conversation that followed was amazing. He explained that he had heard about “a God guy who hung out at the cigar shop and was willing to talk to people about God.” As I was walking up, someone had pointed me out. So he had a question for me.
This man wanted to check out God and was interested in going to church but was getting a variety of opinions from his friends about which church to attend. He wanted to know my opinion on three specific churches in our area: one Catholic, one Methodist, one non-denominational. I replied that he might want to check out all three and then choose the one where he heard the most about Jesus, since his interest was in God and not just in religion.
He nodded – and then the flood gates opened up. We spent the next hour talking about the fact that his wife was divorcing him, and that the crisis of losing his marriage was driving him to seek God.
I learned several things that day. Here are two of them.
First – the thing people ask you about first is not always what they really want to talk about. He asked me about visiting a church. When I responded well to that, he brought up his real question – how to find God in the midst of his pain. The first question people ask and the real question they have are not always the same.
Second – this guy chose to talk to me because of my reputation in that cigar shop. I have never called myself “the God guy” and never would do so. But because I had hung out there for years, talking to people about God, that is how I was known.
The whole world is looking for real people with real faith that they can ask real questions about the real God and about real life.
Be the God guy! Be the God gal!
I would love to tell you that this man has come to faith in Christ. That has not yet happened. But we are still hanging out. We are still talking. The bridge is still being built. He is still seeking.
The adventure is still going …