Divine Dinner

Do you believe that God might care who you sit by at lunch? Do you believe that He may have a purpose behind who you sit next to on the bus? Do you suppose God is able to use you in profound ways simply through the situations of your mundane life?

I do.

I sat at the dinner table on Friday night with the teaching team and we were joined by two ministers from Spain. One was an American missionary here who has been here since 1984. The other was Maximo, a pastor here in Spain. We were enjoying a delicious meal together and then he started asking some tough questions. He asked us all if we were prepared for our children to become prodigals. We were all thrown off a little by this question. We weren’t expecting it. Some offered a few different responses and gradually we began to see why he asked the questions he did.

Maximo has a daughter and a son who have both walked away from God. His son walked away because at the age of 9 all of his hair began falling out. His son cried out to God but God did not respond with healing. As a result, he simply walked away from God saying, “If God won’t listen to me, I won’t listen to him.” My eyes filled with tears as I sat with this man who was clearly distraught about the spiritual condition of his children. We all decided to pray for him and his children right there at the dinner table.

This whole thing got me thinking… What is the story of the person sitting next to me? In any given situation I hardly ever really know. God has taken me around the world to show me how to listen, and to teach me how to care about the person sitting right next to me. So who is sitting next to you today? How does God want to use you to bring comfort, healing, or encouragement to their lives? Does God want to use your prayers to change their lives?

We will never know unless we listen and respond in the spirit of Christ.