Two Great Conversations

On Friday, I had two wonderful conversations! Both were totally unexpected and definitely God was in the moment.

My Friday routine is to get up, do some work around the house, and then head to downtown Muncie. The Blue Bottle is a regular stop...coffee and free wi-fi...it makes the day. After checking e-mail, reading the paper, and drinking an actually ton of coffee, I head over to the Heorot for a pint of the good stuff (Guinness) and a pizza.

This past Friday, I showed up to the Heorot earlier than usual (I was meeting Caleb there at 1:30pm). I was reading through Dallas Willard's book "The Spirit of the Disciplines" and jotting down some notes on prayer. While I was studying, a friend leaned over and said, "Hey, all the important stuff is the underlined stuff." I looked over and it was my good friend Hans.

Hans and I started talking about all kinds of things...his newborn son, Hanson, his wife, his business, some of the typical stuff. As we talked about my life, my wife, my work, etc...we started talking about church. Hans blew me away when he informed me he and his wife had been going to church for the last two years, that he helped out with the last church picnic, that he is really into his church. It was awesome...I've wondered about his spiritual life...and here I found out! It was great.

Then, as I went back to my studies, an older gentleman sat down next to me. He was a little rough around the edges...the kind of guy one might typically avoid when bellying up to the bar. He leaned over and asked what I was studying. So, I told him I was doing some reading on prayer. That sparked his interest and he asked what I did for a living. When I told him I worked at a church, he just smiled and chuckled a bit. He went on to share his life story with me...how he moved here from South Dakota for a woman, served in the Air Force, later divorced the woman and returned to South Dakota, 30 years later he remarried the woman and returned to Muncie, and he told me about his work in construction (he said his psychology degree just never panned out). We probably talked for forty-five minutes and it was an incredible conversation. We talked until Caleb arrived (Caleb enjoys the root beer at the Heorot. Who drinks root beer at the Heorot??? Caleb does! He's a good man).

As the man was preparing to leave, he interrupted my conversation with Caleb and said, "I want to shake your hand because you're the first down-to-earth pastor I've met." Wow! That blew me away...humbled me...made me glad that I had decided to read at the Heorot instead of the Blue Bottle.

The whole day reminded me of my need to be open to the opportunities God puts in front of me. Any other day, I probably would have buried my head in my book and avoided conversation. But, on this day, something nudged me to just be open to whatever God had in store for me and not to get caught up in my studies. Who knows what this week may bring?