Andy and the Tolerable Christian

Last summer a man told me I'd have a ministry to people who'd been hurt by the church, and those who felt like they didn't fit in with the secular crowd or the religious one, odd balls he called them. Since them I've had the most wonderful conversations with eccentric personalities like my own.

Today I met Andy. You should pray for him. He's an older gentleman, a professional opera singer, screen play writer, drummer and novelist. We spoke spent 2 hours at starbucks, discussing art, music, writing, traveling and God. It was a beautiful conversation full of disagreement, personal revelation and appropriate boundaries with a solid foundation on equal listening. Such an enjoyable time. Andy doesn’t know the Lord, in fact, he opened the conversation with a disclaimer that he would not talk about religion. Twenty minutes later he felt comfortable enough to bring it up :) I could have found that to be terribly sad, but instead I was delighted the Lord had introduced us. He later told me I’m the first tolerable Christian he’s met in 20 + years. Oh how privileged I was to talk with Him about the man Christ Jesus as the one I am wasting my life getting to know! Upon hearing me explain this his face scrunched up into little bits and his eyes got lost in an expression of utter disapproval. I could see the gears in his head lock up when I agreed with him on everything from the joy of trans-Siberian train travel to the existence of psychic power and then claimed Jesus as the only source of life. I was careful to wrap every confrontational remark in expressions of love and acceptance of him, making sure he knew he was hearing from a friend. How good it was to talk with another writer in the search for inspiration! How much better it was to share Jesus as the source of inspiration! To talk about His return, the culmination of everything beautiful when the true and genuine Body of believers on the earth meets the destruction of everything we’ve ever known; when judgment and mercy are inseparable and the world awaits a final march, one man entering the gates of Jerusalem and then, then everything wrong will be made right. That's beauty.

“What if the Divine lives here on earth? What if it’s under a translucent layer and all we have to do is access it? Sometimes I feel it when I sing or when I write. Sometimes when I travel and I feel stillness, there I’ll get inspiration for my next novel and I know I just touched an energy that’s not my own.”

“Yes! “ I said. “ It’s God, it’s the Spirit of the man Jesus Christ! He is the origin or creativity, the sum of all things beautiful, He is peace and His Spirit is here on earth, residing among mankind, waiting to be known by you and me!”

He didn’t understand. But I did. And I told him that as the return of Christ grew nearer and nearer he would have more conversations with people who know the Spirit, people who've touched Beauty and tasted true Creativity. He’s a man. And he wants to be known by Andy tonight.
Please pray for dreams and visions until God sends Andy his next "tolerable Christian" (in Andy's own words) to share a cup of coffee with.