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The Fisherman on the Aisle Was Listening

Last July I wrote about a most remarkable experience in the Seoul, Korea airport. This post relates a different encounter in another airport, Sea-Tac, in Washington state.

In the 90s I traveled between Oregon and Alaska two or three times a year. Almost always I took the (cheaper) late flight from PDX to Anchorage, arriving about 1 a.m. And, on the way home, the red-eye.

One of those 2 a.m. departures from Anchorage found me by the window, and, in the middle seat next to me, a young man, a little rough around the edges. Unwashed, I think. I figured he was a commuting fishermen. Lots of commercial fishers traveled between Alaska and the Pacific NW.

He seemed grumpy (turned out he wasn’t feeling well) and I was tired. I didn’t want to talk. But I felt compelled (later I knew it wasn’t just an intrinsic compulsion; Someone was compelling me) to start a conversation in an effort to share the gospel. I could never have imagined what the Holy Spirit was up to, but I was about to find out.

He freely shared about his life. Yes, he was a fisherman. The only other thing I remember: his uncle was a preacher. That provided a natural segue to my testimony, and the gospel. He listened politely, interacted a little, but wasn’t interested. I tried to be clear that his eternal destiny was at stake, and what it meant to trust Christ. I asked him if he wouldn’t like to do that right there. But he wasn’t ready.

We stopped talking, I turned to the window, went to sleep and didn’t wake until Seattle.

I thought I was going for a walk

The plane was going on to Portland; there was no need to get off. But I wanted to stretch my legs. Again, I could not know I was being nudged by Providence.

At the gate desk I inquired how long before reboarding. “About ten minutes.” I turned to start a brisk walk, but someone was there, waiting for me, the man who’d been in the aisle seat in my row, on the other side of the fisherman. A young guy, maybe 25. He wanted to talk. He seemed agitated. And he surprised me.

“I heard you talking to that man sitting between us and I think you’re a very fortunate guy.” He fidgeted. I wondered if he was going to hit me. I was lucky because the other guy didn’t hit me, but this fellow was going to do it. (You know how your mind can run away in a flash?)

“I’ve never met anyone who was so confident about their relationship with God.” He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and pushed it at me. “I heard you tell him you’d send him some information and I was wondering if … maybe … you’d …”

I took the slip. He’d scrawled his name and address.

“Of course I’d be happy to send you the same material.” He nodded. “In fact, we can talk right now. I’ve got time before I have to get back on the plane.”

“Oh no, my life is such a mess.” He looked away, then back. Talked some more. He also was a commercial fisherman, on his way home to North Dakota. He’d recently broken up with his girl, and when he stepped off the plane and saw couples embracing, the pain rushed over him again.

“Why don’t we just sit down and talk for a few minutes? I could pray with you.”

Not just  a couple of guys talking

No, he didn’t think so. But he kept talking. Told me about a friend who’d been killed in a car accident. Hurt and grief went deep in him. He figured he’d just go now. He wasn’t worthy to ask anything from God.

Once more, I invited him. “Why don’t we just sit down over here and talk about it? You can respond to God right now.”

No, he guessed not. And I almost gave up. No point in being obnoxious. Just as well start that walk.

Then it hit me. I realized what was happening. This wasn’t just a human encounter, a couple of weary travelers chatting at six in the morning in a busy airport. For just a moment, time had stopped. Heaven and hell were in attendance, one beckoning, one grasping. This young man in front of me was standing at Jesus’ door, and about to turn away. This was his moment. Jesus was calling, and the devil was lying.

“You know, there’s a battle going on right now.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve really messed up.”

“No, I don’t think you understand. Someone is whispering in your ear right now, ‘Get away from this guy. Don’t listen to him. Get out of here.’ And you could do that. You could end this conversation and walk away. But you might never be in this place in your life again. God is calling to you. Are you sure you won’t step over here with me and look at the Bible and pray?”

“Okay.”

What I almost missed out on

We found a spot about as quiet as you could expect and read some Bible verses. Why we need a savior, and who he is, and how do we come into relationship with him. We are great sinners, but Christ is a great Savior. He could never be good enough to please God, but Jesus’ perfect goodness had been offered to God on his behalf.

And there, at 6:00 a.m. in the Seattle airport, a fisherman bowed and repented and trusted in the promise of Christ. He prayed. Right there at a SeaTac gate, people coming and going, he found faith in Jesus. He’d almost walked away, but he stayed and was born again by the Spirit of God.

I got home and mailed the material, and included the name of a church or two in his town. Never heard back. Reckon I’ll see him at Jesus’ feet someday.

He almost missed his moment, and so did I. When I had boarded in Alaska, I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I just wanted to sleep. But something—Someone, actually—constrained me to speak to my neighbor. I did, he heard, said No. Which didn’t surprise me. That was normal.

But the message wasn’t meant for him. The fisherman in the middle was tuned out, but the fisherman on the aisle was listening. I didn’t know that, might have wondered, after that “fruitless” conversation, What was that all about, Lord? I could not have known for whom the words were spoken.

And while I slept, an eavesdropping passenger pondered and processed. And got off the plane, and waited, just in case I showed up.

It’s a great example of the difference between the gospel call and the effectual call. But that’s for another post.

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The Woman Who Trusted God in Affliction

When I was 12 I met Amanda Friesen. Fifty-four years later the image of her broken body remains vivid in my mind.

Amanda’s life defined victory in affliction. Not just coping, but flourishing in the most severe circumstances.

I have thought about her these days as so many friends are suffering. Barb’s 22-year-old grandson is dying of cancer. Angie’s good friend the same. Susan must bury her husband of 51 years. Mary is losing her baby, a little bit at a time, before he saw the light of day. Some unnamed degenerative malady is ripping Carol’s body. Clark is bewildered, trying to find his footing in retirement after a lifetime of ministry here and abroad. (Not their real names.) All these remind me of Amanda.

Most of my story at 12 has faded from memory. It was small-town life in America’s heartland. We rode our bikes all over town till sundown and played kick the can after dark. We hunted rabbits on the Woodruff farm above the Niobrara River and ate fried chicken on Sunday. Some would call it dull, our farming community of a few hundred souls. Not much memorable material to blog about.

But I remember Jake and Amanda Friesen. They lived in Fairfax, South Dakota, ten miles north across the state line. Jake was a schoolteacher, unreremarkable to my view. Tall and thin are the only descriptors I can recover.

As for Amanda, nobody could forget the first time they saw her. And I’m not talking about glamour.

No visible beauty

She was likely never glamorous: of sound prairie Mennonite stock, after all. But an enchanting, demure lass looks at me from the portrait in her book of poetry. Her high school grad picture, maybe? An attractive young woman of the Roaring Twenties: dark wavy hair, gentle eyes behind frameless glasses, slight smile flanked by a dimple; this Amanda I never met.

After that picture she married, and lost one baby before three others arrived. Inside a dozen years after the last birth, a crippling arthritis took her, mutated her into the Amanda I remember: pale skin; thin, gray hair; body rigid as wood.

Webster defines paralysis: “the loss of the power of muscular motion, or of the command of the muscles.” Gary Brumbelow defined it, for many years: “stiff like a board.” Forever stamped in my memory is the strange sight of Jake carrying her from his station wagon, as one might move a mannequin, into our house. Dad folded down the piano, and Jake laid her on it. She could move her arms from the elbows down, her eyes and her mouth. That’s all. She wore prism glasses that bent her sight 90 degrees, and used a mirror to look at us and join the conversation as we ate and talked around the table beside her.

The paralysis never beat her

One time I was in their home and saw her ironing. She was strapped to a vertical “bed” Jake had fashioned that allowed her to move an iron back and forth over the laundry. That hideous arthritis had crippled but not beaten her. “Struck down, but not destroyed.”

Jesus loved Amanda and she loved him back. Her gracious words uplifted all who came to her, including my mom. She spoke of a healing she knew was coming. I doubted that very much, but said nothing, of course. I regarded such talk as wishful thinking, didn’t realize till much later she was talking about the resurrection.

In her affliction, Amanda Friesen overflowed with joy. She had confidence to spare. In her poems she writes about “the Book of books” which she loved to read. I suspect she knew Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians.

I pray … that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph 3:18-19 ESV)

Strong enough to grasp Jesus’ love

Paul did not ask God to remove the Ephesians’ affliction. He did not ask Him to give them strength to bear their suffering, or wisdom to understand God’s purposes. This we might have expected. He asks God to make them strong enough to comprehend how big Jesus’ love is. A four-dimension love, one that is never diminished, so that regardless of our circumstances, no matter how severe our suffering, we can simply rest. Can live in peace. Even when a grandson dies at 22, a baby is lost, a loved one robbed by ALS. 

Because God is always good. He makes no mistakes. Upon a day to come we will see the tapestry from the front that we now regard only from the back, its seemingly random threads weaving doubt where faith should prevail. As it did for Amanda.

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Cat On a Pole

We’d been in Williams Lake, British Columbia less than a month when we had an unlikely encounter with a cat, an experience which pictures the contrast between God’s glory and human glory. This post wraps up a three-part series which began with What Do You Say to a Weeping Stranger.

Home was a 12×50 foot trailer we had hauled 2300 miles from Nebraska. We installed it at the Kendall Acres mobile home park high above the town. Our assignment—Alkali Lake Reserve—lay forty miles south on the Dog Creek Road. Two or three times a week we spent an hour each way bumping over gravel roads that exacted revenge on our 1972 Olds Cutlass for the pounding of log trucks.

One November day we were maybe a mile from home, weaving the curvy road between homesteads and small farms cut out of the woods, when we rounded another bend and spotted a cat perched at the top of a utility pole. When we returned a couple of hours later the feline was still there. And still there two or three days later when we set out for Alkali again.

Williams Lake is 200 miles north of the border. November in Williams Lake is like January in Wichita–near freezing. Something had to be done.

The firefighter who answered my call to the fire station rebuffed my request. The cat would come down when it was ready. But we weren’t convinced, decided to attempt a rescue with our own resources.

How do you get a cat off a pole?

I scrummaged a short piece of lightweight pipe, wire and rope. At the scene, I cut a sapling long enough to reach the cat. To its smaller end I lashed the pipe with the wire, pushed a loop of rope through the pipe from the bottom, and tied the short end of the rope to the pole below the pipe. The long end hung free.

We heaved the pole to the cat. After several tries I snagged the body of the cat with the loop, pulled it snug, and tugged the creature from its perch. That pull set the high end of pole, feline attached, into an arc, which made it impossible to slow the cat’s descent. It hit the ground a little hard, but unhurt. We rushed to free her from the rope.

What does a cat do in such a situation? Dash for the woods, of course. That’s what I expected. But I was wrong. As soon as the rope was off, that feline plastered herself against my ankles, rubbing and purring to show her gratitude. In fact she insisted on going home with us and hung around for about 24 hours before moving on.

The cat’s response surprised me. I’ve thought about it many times–a fun experience and fun story.

But not as fun as the Seoul story. And that story is not as amazing as God’s cosmic rescue of His elect, including Gary Brumbelow. Less amazing in at least four ways.

God, the original hero

God gave us the privilege of helping the Russian family; however, anyone could have done it. … But only God could rescue a lost world.

We rescued them from a temporary difficulty. I don’t know what would have happened, but the consequences would not have been eternal. … Which is exactly what the consequences are in the cosmic rescue God effected for lost sinners.

We spent little to help these strangers from Russia–about 30 minutes of our time and not enough calories to measure. … But God gave his beloved Son; Jesus laid down his life for our rescue.

Finally, the Russian woman and her family were strangers. … But “God showed his love for us in that while we were enemies, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

That’s enough fodder to ponder for a long time. And, beyond time, forever. Praise be to God.

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It’s More Blessed to Rescue Than to Be Rescued

A woman weeping on the sidewalk taught me something about God.

If you haven’t read the previous postmore blessed to rescue, how we came across a desolate, helpless stranger in the Seoul airport and what happened, you should go there first. This is part two.

Like I said at the end of that post, I learned something about God that day.

I’d known God for a long time. By the immeasurable grace of Christ, I heard the gospel as a young child and responded in repentance and faith. Very early I learned that God is the cosmic rescuer and we’re the rescued. Yes! Hallelujah! Thank you, Father.

But one day I read Ephesians 1 where Paul obsesses about God getting blessed as He rescues sinners. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” (Ephesians 1:3 ESV).

I didn’t understand what he was talking about. What benefit does God get from salvaging poor helpless humans? The answer eluded me until that day in the Seoul airport. Here’s how that went down.

My shuttle pulls away from the terminal. Through the rear window I watch that little knot of happy humans recede in the distance. Their cup is full. Obviously. No surprise there.

I watch until I can’t see them any more. But I’m feeling them. Something is happening in my chest, and it lasted all day, and then some. A deep joy, an unbroken thrill at the sense of privilege was rising in my heart. And even before the shuttle got back to Valerie and June, I realized, This must be how God feels. This is what Ephesians is talking about!

The rescuer gets the bigger blessing

I replayed that experience over and over all day as we travelled on into Russia. I related it to anyone who would listen. And the incident unlocked a biblical truth that had eluded me for years. It’s more blessed to rescue than to be rescued.

more blessed to rescueWe’ve received much from God. Ephesians 1:3-14 lists multiple benefits God has granted us in Christ: election, predestination, adoption, redemption, forgiveness, and more. And as the writer lists these blessings, he interrupts himself three times with an intriguing phrase: “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (v 6); “to the praise of His glory (v 12); “to the praise of His glory” (v 14).

For years I skimmed over those brief benedictions without understanding them. What’s the existential link between my rescue and God’s blessing?

Blessed be God!

In fact, Paul begins that section with the phrase I quoted above: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Really? Blessed be God? Aren’t I the one who gets blessed? Aren’t I the lost sinner who finds a forever home in Christ? Aren’t I richly, abundantly favored in Christ? Yes, yes and yes. That’s exactly what Paul says. But he begins with “blessed be God.”

Okay, Paul, whatever you say. But seems like it would be more accurate to say, “Blessed be Gary Brumbelow who has received every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ.”

All this came clear to me in the Seoul airport, September 2000, when a lost family got richly blessed, and the rescuer got blessed even more.

I wasn’t suffering that day. It wasn’t me lost and alone. That would be her, the stranger from Russia weeping on the sidewalk. She was “separated … alienated … having no hope and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). She was sick with fear and grief, suffocating in despair. But a half hour after we met, she had been rescued … and I had been profoundly blessed.

This blessing happened at two levels. First, I felt a great inner joy, an irrepressible buoyancy. I was floating a foot off the ground for several hours.

Blessed be some American strangers

But I believe another level of blessing–that is, of praise—was also developing.

About our cosmic rescue Paul testifies, “blessed be God.” And I’m pretty sure the Russian stranger was testifying “blessed be those Americans.” That family presumably arrived in their new home in Korea where they found new neighbors, met new colleagues, made new friends—and also called back home—and to many of these they gave glory to some American strangers. We received glory. Their unlikely rescue resulted in the praise of the glory of some American strangers.

That’s a tiny parallel to what we read about God receiving glory for his rescue of humans. There are also some very big differences between the two.

But that explanation involves a cat story, and I’m already stretching my reader’s patience. Next post.

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