We were the third car in line for the 6:55 p.m. ferry. We were heading home from Friday Harbor after a fun day of sightseeing with my brother Bob and his wife Jacki. When we drove on board the attendant motioned me to take the third row, the far right lane, in the center section. We had never been at the extreme front of the ferry before. An attendant put the chocks under our wheels and before us lay open water.
After we parked we decided that this was a great place to see everything on the way back to Anacortes. So my brother Bob and I got out and stood in front of the car. As we pulled away the wind blew against our faces and we had unbelievable view.
Before long the guy in the car next to us got out. His wife went up stairs and he came over and we had a great time getting to know him. His name was Larry. Larry looked about my age, just as handsome and youthful for a guy in his mid-fifties. We talked motorcycles, hiking in the Cascades and what it was like to be a new grandfather. Larry owns a manufacturing company in Ohio. His company employs 144 people and they produce acoustical products for theaters, home theater systems, and multistory buildings etc. No one in the penthouse wants to hear clanging machines running or feel vibrations they naturally create. He knows what it’s like to have a dad with Alzheimer’s. After a while Bob was getting cold so he went back to the car. Larry grabbed a windbreaker and we kept comparing notes there on the lower deck of the ferry. This was a great place to observe creation, swap stories and compare notes.
Larry asked me what I did and I told him I was a pastor. This led to him telling me about his spiritual pilgrimage from being a Mormon to a Methodist. He had never felt as a child that Mormonism was “right” and he left the church when he left home. Three times the elders came to correct him and tried to convince him of the error of his ways. He was polite but told them he wanted out.
He married a woman who had grown up Methodist. As a business man he felt he could help the Methodist church and so he began attending. They loved their pastor and got involved but when he was called to a new parish a year later things changed and they just didn’t connect once the pastor left. After a while he felt church was nothing more than business with a religious feel and they haven’t been back.
I asked him what he thought it took to make it to heaven. “If there is to be a judgment, then I think God will look at my life and say that he tried, and that the good outweighed the bad,” he told me. I told him that if we were both 10’x’s as good as Mother Teresa we still wouldn’t make it because to arrive at heaven you had to be as good as Jesus. Larry didn’t have anything against Jesus; I don’t think it had ever dawned on him that He needed God’s help to get to heaven. He just didn’t know he needed to trust God’s Son who made the view that lay before us. “He paid the debt we owed God, a debt no one else could pay. Believing in his work on the cross is what makes us right with God. And once we believe in Jesus that begins a new relationship that goes beyond this life into the next,” I explained. Larry nodded. Larry is a nice guy. He seemed interested. I got to plant a seed. While leaning on the front of the car and looking across the waters of the San Juan Islands was a treat, so was telling a nice guy about the one way God’s provided for us all to make to the most beautiful spot of all, home with Him.
This summer the God who created the beauty that’s all around us will give us opportunities to tell others about his latest creation: how he takes broken and incomplete people and restores them to Himself through His son’s redeeming death and saving life. Be ready. As Peter reminds us:
“But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to explain the hope you have to everyone who asks you with gentleness and reverence”. 1 Peter 3:15
After we parked we decided that this was a great place to see everything on the way back to Anacortes. So my brother Bob and I got out and stood in front of the car. As we pulled away the wind blew against our faces and we had unbelievable view.
Before long the guy in the car next to us got out. His wife went up stairs and he came over and we had a great time getting to know him. His name was Larry. Larry looked about my age, just as handsome and youthful for a guy in his mid-fifties. We talked motorcycles, hiking in the Cascades and what it was like to be a new grandfather. Larry owns a manufacturing company in Ohio. His company employs 144 people and they produce acoustical products for theaters, home theater systems, and multistory buildings etc. No one in the penthouse wants to hear clanging machines running or feel vibrations they naturally create. He knows what it’s like to have a dad with Alzheimer’s. After a while Bob was getting cold so he went back to the car. Larry grabbed a windbreaker and we kept comparing notes there on the lower deck of the ferry. This was a great place to observe creation, swap stories and compare notes.
Larry asked me what I did and I told him I was a pastor. This led to him telling me about his spiritual pilgrimage from being a Mormon to a Methodist. He had never felt as a child that Mormonism was “right” and he left the church when he left home. Three times the elders came to correct him and tried to convince him of the error of his ways. He was polite but told them he wanted out.
He married a woman who had grown up Methodist. As a business man he felt he could help the Methodist church and so he began attending. They loved their pastor and got involved but when he was called to a new parish a year later things changed and they just didn’t connect once the pastor left. After a while he felt church was nothing more than business with a religious feel and they haven’t been back.
I asked him what he thought it took to make it to heaven. “If there is to be a judgment, then I think God will look at my life and say that he tried, and that the good outweighed the bad,” he told me. I told him that if we were both 10’x’s as good as Mother Teresa we still wouldn’t make it because to arrive at heaven you had to be as good as Jesus. Larry didn’t have anything against Jesus; I don’t think it had ever dawned on him that He needed God’s help to get to heaven. He just didn’t know he needed to trust God’s Son who made the view that lay before us. “He paid the debt we owed God, a debt no one else could pay. Believing in his work on the cross is what makes us right with God. And once we believe in Jesus that begins a new relationship that goes beyond this life into the next,” I explained. Larry nodded. Larry is a nice guy. He seemed interested. I got to plant a seed. While leaning on the front of the car and looking across the waters of the San Juan Islands was a treat, so was telling a nice guy about the one way God’s provided for us all to make to the most beautiful spot of all, home with Him.
This summer the God who created the beauty that’s all around us will give us opportunities to tell others about his latest creation: how he takes broken and incomplete people and restores them to Himself through His son’s redeeming death and saving life. Be ready. As Peter reminds us:
“But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to explain the hope you have to everyone who asks you with gentleness and reverence”. 1 Peter 3:15
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