Hello,
An angel sat next to me at lunch the other day at the
Biblical seminar, which I have been attending. Actually this angel sat next to me three times,
but the first two times I didn’t recognize my lunch neighbor to be an
angel. The reason for my blindness
was the less than angelic behavior that I saw.
My lunch neighbor was a middle school boy who was attending
the seminar with his mother, a pastor.
The seminar was designed for pastors to bring family along with them,
and many did. So, the presence of
this middle school boy was not unusual, but his behavior was. If you have ever spent time with
middles school boys, you know that they live at an awkward age….an age between
residual squirreliness and budding coolness. This particular middle schooler was clearly leaning toward
the squirrelly side of the continuum.
Smaller than most boys his age, I was surprised to hear that
he was a middle schooler.
Partnered with his goofy (as in Disney’s Goofy) conversational skills,
his unrefined eating habits (including stuffing large wads of food in his mouth
and simultaneously laughing at his own jokes), and wriggling around in his
chair like a rabbit trying to escape the grip of a trap I would have guessed
him far younger than he was.
I don’t know how it happened that for the three lunches I
ate at the lodge, I found myself sitting next to this boy. I am not one of those who believe that
God intricately controls every move of my life, but since I do believe that God
steps with me in every movement of my life, I have a sneaky feeling that
something divine was woven into what was going on.
I don’t remember anything particular that he said to me at
the first two lunches, it all seemed to be a scrambled egg blending of
silliness and tactlessness. The
third lunch began in the same way, but then something happened that opened my
blurry visioned eyes.
We were just about to start eating, and when the cry went
up, “Who would like to pray?”, my middle school neighbor raised his hand and
let loose a shriek that I am sure echoed through the Rockies. “I will,”
“Oh, no.” I thought to myself….this aught to be interesting.
And interesting it was. A sudden calm came across him, and he folded his hands on
the table and closed his eyes. And
with the reverence of a sagely grandfather, he said, “Lord, thank you for this
food. Thank you for the nice
people who have carefully prepared it for us, and as we eat it, don’t let us
forget those people who don’t have much food. And help us also to remember those people who just need a
little help each day to make it through.
Lord, put us in their paths.
Amen.”
There was silence.
An angel had just spoken.
The word “angel” comes from the Greek (it is even spelled
the same way), and it means, “messenger”.
That young boy delivered a message, a divine message that sent shock
waves to my heart…sock waves of guilt that I should have fallen prey to what
the world thinks of squirrelly middle school boys…and shock waves of the divine
compassion that God holds in God’s heart for those who serve in small ways and
those who struggle in life.
Three times an angel sat next to me at lunch, and my life has
been forever changed.
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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