Recently, I met a man at a hotel. Well, let me rephrase
that. My husband and I were at a hotel. He was in a conference room for a
meeting. I was in the empty breakfast room reading a book on my Kindle.
A man walked in,
not noticing me at first, and fixed himself a cup of coffee. He led a service
dog on a leash. When he turned around and instructed his dog to sit, he caught me watching from the table a few feet away. He apologized for disturbing me and asked if I
minded the dog. I assured him that I wasn’t disturbed and that the dog was
welcome. Then then man asked me a strange question:
“Are you a Seventh-day Adventist?”
I swallowed a chuckle. “No. But I’m a Baptist.”
“Oh, that’s about the same,” he said.
I didn’t argue. To most people, it is, indeed, about the
same. But I was curious. “Why would you think I’m a Seventh-day Adventist?”
He took a seat at the next table and faced me. “Because
you’re at peace.”
Um, okay, it’s true, I am at peace. It’s not a
denominational thing. I’m at peace because I’m redeemed. “Are you a Seventh-day
Adventist?” I asked.
“Oh, yes. I have been for several years. I try to observe
the Sabbath. Sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.” He sighed and crumpled his
brow. It was about four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon.
I wondered about his disability, and I looked at the dog that
had stretched out on the floor. The harness read: Emotional Support Animal.
My conversation with the man lasted forty minutes or so. He’d lived in
Turkey and had visited all the sites of the seven churches named in the book of the Revelation.
He had some fascinating stories to share, but it seemed he was quite alone. He told
me he had no one but his dog. And the Lord, of course. He expressed interest in what I was reading, and
that trail led to talk of my own writing, and of our somewhat diverging worldviews. More importantly, of the only
hope for the world. He said he didn’t understand how we got so messed up,
why people had given up on faith. On God.
“The gospel is
foolishness to those who are perishing,” I told him. Perhaps our doctrinal conclusions didn’t quite align,
what with him being a Seventh-day Adventist and me being a Baptist, but on this point, we agreed.
My husband emerged from the conference room and joined us.
He’d been in that room for nine hours and he was ready to go. We both shared a
few more words with the stranger, and I told the man we were headed home.
“Good,” he said. “This is a dark place.”
I don’t recall my last words to the man. His last words to
me are all I remember. I don’t know if he was referring to the hotel, which was
very nice, or the South Florida city, which was a little more cram-packed than
my own small town in Central Florida. Or if he meant to say that he was broken
and lonely and not at peace.
Maybe our talk ended too soon. Maybe I didn’t
say the right things. Or maybe God used the encounter to stir up the man’s
conviction about what it really means to follow Christ. Or…maybe God sent the
man to remind me of the same thing.
God being who He is, I’ve no doubt it was just the right amount
of conversation, at the right time, in the right place. For both of us.
For the
message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who
are being saved it is the power of God. I Corinthians 1:18
