I had finished my shopping and was heading towards the shortest checkout queue when I noticed a man doing the same thing.
‘Ladies before gentlemen!’ he said with a smile.
As I thanked him and forged ahead, I bumped my trolley against the counter.
‘Oops—looks like I need to see where I’m going!’ I laughed.
‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘I’ve been trying to work that out for the past seventy years!’
My mind whirred as I stacked my groceries on that counter, but before I could say anything, he spoke again.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’
For a few moments, that question seemed to hang in the air between us. It was as if time stood still—and almost as if God was smiling at me and saying, ‘Well, Jo—what are you going to say?’
So I said the first thing that came to mind.
‘Actually, I do know where I’m going!’
‘Oh, where’s that?’ he responded.
‘Well, I belong to God—I know Jesus and I believe I’m going to heaven!’
He looked slightly taken aback, but then launched into a little poem I recognised yet now sadly cannot remember. When he had finished, I decided that, if he could quote something to me, I could perhaps quote something back.
‘Oh, I love 1 John 3:1—How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! It’s amazing we can be children of God, don’t you think?’
At that point, it was as if he dredged up a Bible verse of his own from somewhere deep in the recesses of his brain—perhaps from childhood? I could not catch it all, but nodded and smiled.
‘What’s your name?’ he demanded then.
‘I’m Jo-Anne … what’s yours?’
‘I’m Tony,’ he told me, in his lovely European accent.
‘Good to chat, Tony!’I replied, suddenly realising the girl at the checkout was smiling at me—and that the shopper she had just served was looking at me somewhat strangely!
Later, I thought of all the things I could have said instead—but at least the man hadn’t seemed too put off. In fact, I wondered if something had stirred in him as we chatted—perhaps something God had spoken into his heart long ago? And maybe our conversation would cause him to reflect a little more on his own question. I hoped so anyway.
I wondered, however, if what I had said may have come across as just that little bit too presumptuous. Even as I said what I did, I remember thinking, ‘This could sound so proud and arrogant!’ But Jesus himself tells us:
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
And in 1 John 5:11-12, we read:
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life …
I wonder how you would have answered this man’s question. Perhaps your response would have been much wiser and more sensitive than mine. Whatever the case, I hope you do know where you’re going—because that’s the main thing, isn’t it?
Jo-Anne Berthelsen's Blog 