Going to Zaccheus’ House
My family had a Zaccheus experience today. Remember the story of Zaccheus in the Bible? Zaccheus was a hated tax collecter. He was also very short, and had trouble seeing over people in a crowd. One day, Jesus passed by his house, and there were large crowds preventing Zaccheus from seeing Jesus. But Zaccheus was so intent on seeing Jesus that he climbed up into a tree. When Jesus passed by, He saw Zaccheus in the tree. Jesus sensed that Zaccheus would only go to such great lengths to see Him if he were somehow being drawn by His Father in Heaven. So Jesus told Zaccheus to come down from the tree, saying, “I am going to your house today.”
Our “Zaccheus” experience was a lot like this!
We arrived at the dog park a few minutes after Kaleb and Abigail and our Westie named Kirby. The kids love to take Kirby to this dog park to run around and play with other dogs. I think they like talking to the dog owners, too (those two like talking to anybody, anytime, anywhere!). On this day, they had met a gentleman named George,* who had recently lost his dog. George had already shared with the kids that he’d lost his dog and that he was having some health problems. Amanda and I began to talk to him, and he seemed sad and even teared up at one point. Amanda and I could sense that he needed someone to talk to, so she took the kids to play, and George and I sat down at a picnic table beneath a large tree.
I learned that he lost his girlfriend a few years ago, and that she had aborted their baby. She took all of his money. And his health is declining. He has a degerative muscular condition similar to MS. I found out that he is a carpenter by trade. I told him that I was a storyteller, and that I tell people the story of God. He opened up to me and told me that he didn’t understand why he was having these health problems, and that he feared for his mother’s well-being if he were to die. He cried, and expressed many things from his heart.
We talked more, and then I asked him if he would like to hear a story. He enthusiastically agreed. From beginning to end, I told him the story of how Jesus healed the man born blind (John 9). One of the points of the story is that his blindness was not due to his sin or the sins of his parents, but Jesus declared that, “this has happened that the power of God might be displayed in his life.” We talked about how we don’t always know why we suffer, but that sometimes it is to bring God glory. We also discussed how the blind man declared that Jesus was the Messiah, and worshiped him. George’s countenance changed, and he expressed over and over again that he was very grateful for me telling him this story.
Then an unusual thing happened. He invited me to his house, and so I went. After that, he invited our whole family to eat with him at an Indian restaurant (he is Indian-Portugese), and he paid for the meal! Then he took us to see the condominum he is renovating nearby. Through our times together, we talked about Jesus and what He can do in George’s life.
Please pray for George. George comes from a Roman Catholic background, and is missing the point that going to mass does not equate with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I saw pornographic magazines in his home, yet he has pictures of saints and the pope, and he believes that kissing these images and having them in his home will bring him blessing and good luck. In reality, just a few hours with George revealed that his life is a real mess. Pray with me that God might grant “sight to the blind” as he did for the man born blind. Pray that salvation would come to his house, as we see in the New Testament stories of Zaccheus and the man born blind. If God is truly drawing him, that will be the case. We will be here to share God’s story and help him in this process as the Lord leads. Pray that we would be bold, faithful, and can serve George in ways that would make him want to have his life changed, too. Pray also that we might form meaningful relationships with other persons at the dog park as we go there frequently. There is a group of dog owners that come there daily. Hopefully, through a dog, a child, or something new that God orchestrates, we may be able to say again, “Zaccheus, come down from there, I’m going to your house today!”