I saw you

Yesterday morning on the quick drive to the office, I went past a housing development that is going up on the edge of town. I had to pause to let a big tractor-type machine lumber out of a driveway, spewing mud in all directions. As I sat there fuming because I'd be late, I noticed a 40ish-aged man sitting on his back porch--his new back porch--so new that there still were boxes all over and no fence around his yard. There he sat on a metal folding chair hunched over with an open Bible in his hands. He was so absorbed in what he was reading that he didn't see me staring at him or even seem to notice the behemoth machine leaving the development. He would read a few moments, then shut his eyes as though he was looking at something in his mind's eye, or praying--I couldn't tell. But I took notice.

I had been in such a rush that morning leaving the house that I hadn't spent any time with God. I was talking aloud to God when I had to stop for the tractor, but whatever insipid conversation I was having wasn't of the quality that the man in the metal folding chair was having. I drove on silently.

When I got to my office, two blocks further, I was ready and eager to talk to God about substantive things, and to spend time with my open Bible. The man on his new porch has no idea how his example spoke to me.