Miracles (12 page)

When Sally, his secretary, didn't win the lottery, she failed to come to work for several days. Concerned about her, he finally paid her a visit.

As he stood on her porch next to the plants that needed watering, waiting for her to answer, he hoped that his gift hadn't been responsible for her withdrawal. He never should have repeated those numbers back to her. If he hadn't, maybe she wouldn't have put so much hope in the numbers being God's gift.

The door squeaked open, and Sally peeked out. Her eyes were red and swollen. “Sam?”

“Sally, are you okay?” Sam asked.

She nodded and swiped at her nose with a tissue.

“Can I come in?” She hesitated for a moment, then reluctantly stepped back to let him in.

“I wasn't expecting company,” she said, “now that I'm not a millionaire.” She said the words as if she'd been robbed of her fortune and all her friends had fled.

“It's fine,” he said, stepping over wadded tissues on the carpet. Boxes of items cluttered the floor—a computer, a new television, a stereo system. Sam looked around and wondered if she had charged them on her credit card, planning to pay them off when her lottery numbers were chosen. The room was dark, as if she had been sitting there, crying and staring at the things she had coveted.

“I had so many affirmations,” she said in a hoarse, stopped-up voice as she dropped miserably onto her sofa. “You even repeated the numbers I had in my head. How could that be if they weren't the right numbers?”

Sam realized he had unintentionally led her down the wrong path. He had almost used his gift to go that way himself. “I didn't know the numbers, Sally,” he said. “How could I know?”

“But you said them!”

“I just had this feeling . . . about your spiritual condition. That your self-worth was somehow tied up in this lottery. That maybe I was even one of the people you wanted to show your true worth to.”

She grabbed another Kleenex and blew her nose. “If I had become a multimillionaire, we'd see who was superior then.”

“Why do you want to be superior?”

“Because I'm tired of being inferior. Equal would have even been good. But now I'm still just a peon.”

“You've never been a peon, Sally. I couldn't get any of my work done without you.”

“You'd hire another secretary in ten minutes flat. I wouldn't even be a fond memory.” She began to cry again on the last words and pressed the wadded tissue to her eyes.

“Sally, you don't seem to know how much you mean to God.”

“God?” she asked. “What's this got to do with God?”

“God cares more about you than he does some lottery ticket.”

“Obviously he cares
nothing
about my lottery ticket. Not a thing.
Less
than nothing!”

“But you're not listening. He cares about you. And he knows you're worth a whole lot more than money. You're worth everything he had to give—Jesus gave his life for you.”

“Oh, don't give me that,” she bit out. “I know all about the cross. I was raised in church. I'm there every time the doors open. I teach Sunday school. I take food to poor families at Thanksgiving. I know more than you do about Jesus!”

“But knowing about Jesus doesn't do you much good, Sally. The Bible says that you have to ‘confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved.' If you believe in your heart that God did that, Sally, then why can't you trust him with your finances? Why can't you believe that you're worth a lot more than money?”

“Well . . . I do believe that . . . I do.”

But Sam could hear her soul, and he knew she didn't really believe it. Not in her heart. They were just words to her, words she'd heard over and over throughout her life. Words that had little meaning to her. In her heart, where it counted, she didn't really believe.

“I just . . . wanted to be rich. If God loved me so much, he would want me to be rich too.”

“What makes you think that God's business is making his people rich? Maybe he needs you to stay in the middle class for some higher purpose. Maybe he even needs you poor, so he can use you a certain way. His children have a much higher value than dollars and cents. He has a plan for you that's better than any winning lottery ticket.”

She was getting angrier. “If you weren't my boss . . .”

“What? What if I weren't your boss?” Sam waited.

She threw her chin up. “If you weren't my boss, I'd grab you by the throat and throw you out of my house!”

“Why?” he asked.

“Because you've got a lot of nerve, preaching to me. I'm one of the pillars of my church. I don't need you coming in here telling me about Jesus in my time of grief.”

Sam got up, his hands innocently outstretched. “I've offended you—I didn't mean to do that. I just thought you should know that Jesus cares about you.”

“I do know. I guess you're gonna fire me now. Kick me while I'm down!”

“No, I'm not going to fire you,” he said. “I'm going to pray for you. That you'll understand how precious you are to God.”

“I'll show you,” she said. “I'll show you all. I'll win that lottery next week. If I buy enough tickets, I'm sure to win one of these times. I'm not one to give up this easy!”

Sam left her house and got back into his car, feeling sick that he hadn't been able to do better than that.
This is hard
, he thought. He closed his eyes and dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel. “Lord, please help Sally. My coming to see her was not enough. You've got to draw her to you. I can't do any of this by myself. Without you there with me, my words are empty. Useless.”

When he started his car and looked back up at her door, he had tears in his eyes. Humbled, he drove off, aware more than ever that this gift had its limitations.

But Sam didn't let his visit with Sally stop him and decided to depend more than ever on the Holy Spirit to lead him. He lost count of the number of people he led to Christ, as well as the number who rejected him outright. The more he told, the more he wanted to tell, and the greater the urgency in his soul grew.

He couldn't wait until Sunday so he could try to appeal to some of his Christian friends at church to get out there with him. He had been praying earnestly and diligently about it, as Kate had, and he had faith that the Lord would provide helpers for the harvest.

Sunday morning, he and Kate went to the Waffle House for breakfast and shared the gospel with an old man who was sitting there alone. It almost made them late for church, but they pulled into the parking lot just as the organ music began to play. Sam hurried into the foyer, then through the double doors into the sanctuary.

And he stopped cold. The church was packed. He realized he had never seen it this full since they'd completed the new building three years earlier, not even on Easter. They had built it hoping for church growth, but the numbers had declined since that time. Today, however, every pew was full, and folding chairs had been brought in at the back. Even the balconies had people in them.

He looked at Kate and saw that her eyes were glowing. Taking her hand, he slipped into a back pew as the congregation rose and began to sing. The pastor stood at the front of the room, beaming with excitement and joy. Sam looked around him as they sang. There, across the room, he saw Janie, the waitress, with her sister who had accepted Christ a few days before. Down the row was her son with two of his friends.

Kate nudged him and he followed her gaze across the aisle. It was the woman she'd spoken with at the ball game the other night. Two rows in front of her was one of the people he'd met at a convenience store. His eyes scanned the crowd, and up toward the front he saw Sid Beautral, from the hospital, and his wife. The man looked weak, but his face was full of joy.

When the praise time ended, John began to preach the sermon that was so much like the previous Sunday's. But last Sunday no one had heard. He talked about Luke 15 again, about the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost son—he said that they were all things that others might have shrugged off as insignificant, but Jesus saw them as important enough to stop everything to seek them. As John preached, Sam prayed silently that the other Christians in the room would hear and respond, that their hearts would be opened to their true potential—reaching a lost world.

“I'm going to do something different today,” John said. “I can't help thinking that some of you here would like to profess God before men. We're going to have an altar call, and I want you to come if you feel convicted to share what Christ is doing in your life.” This time, Sam didn't check his watch as he had the week before. Instead, he continued to pray, not caring if anyone saw his eyes closed.

Kate nudged him again, and he looked up. A crowd was forming at the front of the room as the people sang on. He strained his neck to see who had gone forward. He saw Janie and her sister and her son, the lady at the ball game, Sid Beautral, and countless others they had met that week.

His eyes began to fill, and he covered his mouth and began to weep. Kate was already crying as if her heart was broken, but he knew the joy that bubbled in her soul as she clung to him. As the music leader led them in another verse, he hoped they wouldn't end the altar call yet. There were others, he knew, more of them who needed to make commitments. They needed another verse. Another song. Another hour. He sang clear and loud, his voice reaching out a prayer of thanks and supplication to his Father.

And then he saw another man slip out of the aisle and head down to the front.

“Anyone you know?” Kate whispered.

He wiped the tears from his face and narrowed his eyes to see through the blur. As the man turned to the side to whisper to John, Sam realized who it was. “That's Rob. My boss.”

Kate stood on her toes to see over the heads. As Rob began to weep, head to head with John, Sam had to restrain himself from leaping forward and running down the aisle himself. Then another came, and another, and at last, he realized that almost as many heard the gospel from Kate as from him or John. People began moving from the front pews to make room for those who had come down. It was a marvel he hadn't been prepared for.

When John was satisfied that no one else was going to come, he nodded to the minister of music and they closed the song. Finally, when the music had stopped, John went back to the pulpit with a tear-stained face.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said in a voice full of emotion, “I want to introduce some people to you. They've each accepted Christ this week, and the story is the same over and over. A handful of these I spoke with, but the rest of them were led to Christ and invited here by either Sam Bennett or his wife, Kate.”

Sam hadn't expected to be mentioned, and as heads turned and people sought him out, he looked at the floor, unable to meet their eyes. He didn't want the recognition, he thought. He just wanted help from other Christians.

“Sam?” John said from the pulpit.

Sam looked up.

“Would you come up here for a minute, please?”

Sam had no idea what John wanted him to do, but he got up, wiped his face, and walked the aisle. He went up to the pulpit and stood next to John, his face wet with his tears.

“Something's happened to Sam this week,” John said. “This past week, he started listening to people's needs. One by one, he and Kate led these people here today. But they need help. I want to ask you, those of you who want to be like Sam, who want to help change people's lives, come to my class today at 4:00. Let's learn some Scripture you can use when sharing your faith, talk about ways to seek out the people who need to hear. Let's figure out how we can tap into Christ's vine to make our own branches bear fruit. And please come up and welcome our new brothers and sisters.”

Then, one by one, he began to introduce those who had come, welcoming them to the family of God, embracing each one of them. Sam was there to accept the hugs and thanks of all who had come. When Rob came up, Sam reached for his hand. Rob pulled him into a hug. “Thank you,” he whispered, overcome.

“You didn't call,” Sam said. “I haven't even seen you at work.”

“I've been thinking about it all week,” Rob said. “I couldn't stop thinking about what you'd said. You may have saved my life. I owe you, big time.”

“No,” Sam said. “It's not me you owe.”

By the time everyone had been welcomed and greeted and most of the congregation had left the church, Sam was exhilarated. A handful of people lingered behind.

Lawrence Shipman, the chairman of the deacons, approached him with a concerned look on his face. “What are you doing to get these people into church?” he asked. “Bribing them? Offering them food? What?”

Sam hadn't expected a question like that. “I've been telling them about Jesus.”

“I want to know what they expect,” he demanded as if he hadn't heard Sam, “coming here and bringing all their friends like that. Do they think they're gonna get something out of it?”

“They'd be right if they think that,” Sam said. “They are gonna get something out of it.”

“But some of these people don't fit in with our congregation,” Lawrence said. “Did you see how some of them were dressed? Like they'd come straight from a bar. Church may not be the place where they need to be.”

Sam's face began to grow hot as it had with Rob in the office the other day. He opened his mouth to tell Lawrence that people with his attitude were the reason for the stagnant state of their church for the past few years. But before he could formulate the words, he heard the man's inner voice. “I'm powerless. I don't have any control.”

Sam's anger vanished. “Lawrence, there isn't a person on the face of the earth who wouldn't be welcome in this sanctuary, as far as I'm concerned.”