John’s face changed radically, and he sat frozen, staring back at Sam.
Then Sam realized what he had done. “You didn’t say anything, did you? You thought it or felt it. I heard it, John. Don’t you see?”
John looked as startled as Sam. “I hadn’t told anybody that,” he said. “I hadn’t discussed this even with my wife. It’s just been going through my mind . . .”
“I heard it, John! I’m not making this up! Now can you see what I’m going through?”
John was beginning to perspire now. He rubbed his chin for a moment, staring at Sam with stricken eyes. Slowly, he got up, came back around the desk, and sat in the chair opposite Sam. “Sam, can you hear what I’m thinking right now?”
Sam closed his eyes and tried to listen. It was useless. He couldn’t hear on demand. He had no power over what was happening to him. “No. I’m not psychic. It’s not like that. It’s more like I hear . . . needs. Specific ones.”
“Needs? Could you hear people’s orders in the diner? Before they spoke?”
“No, not those kinds of needs. It’s like . . . what you said in church Sunday, about what would happen if we could hear people’s spiritual needs.”
John sat back in his chair, silent for a moment. “I didn’t think you were listening.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam admitted. “It just sort of came back to me this morning. After God spoke that word.”
“You really feel it was God who said that to you?”
Again, he struggled to think it through logically but came back to the same conclusion. “Yes, I do think it was God. I mean, think about it. I’m dreaming about Luke 15, I hear a word in some other language, I remember part of your sermon . . . That stuff never happens to me.”
“Thanks a lot,” John said.
“But I start hearing all these things . . .”
John went to his bookshelf and got down his concordance. “What was the word again?”
“Ephphtha or something.”
“Epithet?”
“No. It wasn’t English. I’m sure it wasn’t.”
“Ephah? That’s a measurement.”
“No. It had another syllable, I think. Let me see.” Sam took the book and scanned the Eph’s, whispering the pronunciation of each word. “Epher, Ephesus, Ephod . . .” His eyes widened as he came to the word. “Ephphatha! This is it! John, this is the word.”
John took the book and found the reference. “It’s Mark 7:34.” He grabbed up his Bible, scanned the verses, then dropped back into his chair. “Wow.”
“What?” Sam took the Bible and found the verse. Slowly, he began to read. “He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, ‘Ephphatha!’ (which means, ‘Be opened!’).” Sam frowned up at the pastor. “So what was God trying to say to me?”
“Look at the context,” John said. “They had brought Jesus a deaf, mute man. And Jesus spat on his fingers and put them into his ears and said, ‘Ephphatha! Be opened.’ And the man began to hear and speak.”
“But what has that got to do with me? I’m not even hard of hearing.”
John got that look in his eyes that he got when he thought the Holy Spirit was moving in their church services. He was obviously getting excited. “Don’t you see, Sam? For some reason, the Lord came to you last night, and he opened your ears. Is it possible, Sam, that you’re hearing what the Holy Spirit hears? Out loud?”
Sam sorted back through the things he’d heard and slowly began to nod. “I heard a woman who couldn’t provide for her family, another woman who thought she’d never escape her past, somebody who thought she was nobody, insignificant . . .”
“Spiritual needs. Just as God hears them.”
Sam thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I guess so. But . . . why me? Why would God choose me to curse?”
“Sam, this isn’t a curse! This is a gift!” John said. “What I wouldn’t give to have it!”
“But why me? Why not somebody like you who knows how to explain about Jesus? Somebody who’s comfortable with sharing their faith?”
“We’re all supposed to witness whether we’re comfortable or not, Sam. That’s what I preached on Sunday. We’re all supposed to go out there with the feeling of urgency because there are lost people and no one to find them!”
“But I can’t do that!” Sam shouted. “I’m just an ordinary guy! I’m not a preacher. I’ve never been to seminary. What am I supposed to do? Preach on the street corners? Go around proclaiming Jesus from the mountaintops?”
“Yes!” John said, springing to his feet.
Sam let out a disbelieving breath and wilted back into the chair. “John, you’ve got to help me. I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can,” John said, leaning toward him and taking his shoulder. “Sam, if you’re a Christian you can do this. You’ve been given a mighty gift, and the Lord never gives a gift he doesn’t equip you to use.”
“But this is insane. Kate’ll have me committed.”
“Not if she hears her deepest spiritual needs spoken back to her like you just did with me. People will listen to you, Sam! They want nothing more than to find the answers to their deepest needs—they’ll want you to talk to them! Do you know how special that is?”
Sam felt suddenly overwhelmed. He dropped his face into his hands and began to cry, something he hadn’t done since his mother’s funeral years ago. This was too much for one man to handle.
John laid his hand on the back of Sam’s neck. “Sam, I want to pray for you. This seems like a lot, I know. But God gave it to you. You need to thank him and acknowledge that you can’t use it without him. It’s his power.”
Sam could accept that; this wasn’t something of his own doing. Only God could have come up with something this amazing. He bowed his head, still crying, and listened as John prayed for him. He wished he could believe that the Lord would just fill him with words and courage and that Sam could tell everyone he saw how to meet those needs, just like Paul or Peter. But he had trouble seeing himself in that role. Since when was Sam Bennett a missionary evangelist? When John whispered, “Amen,” Sam looked helplessly up at him.
“Sam, I’ll help you,” John said. “How about if we each take the day off? We can go somewhere and sit. You can just tell me everything you hear. I’ll take it from there. I’ll teach you how to let God direct.”
Sam felt the first calm of the day washing over him like a warm tide, and he squinted up at John through his tears. “You could do that?”
“Of course I could. I can’t wait to see how this works.”
He opened his hands. “All right. Where will we go?”
John thought a moment. “The bus station? It’s sometimes pretty crowded this time of day. Think of all those lost souls. All those voices.”
“No.” Sam shook his head adamantly. “I can’t handle that. Just a few at a time. Let’s go someplace I’m used to. Let’s go back to the diner.”
“All right,” John said. “Let me just leave a note for the staff.”
But as they headed back out to John’s car, Sam felt a sinking, sick feeling deep in his gut that God had made his first mistake.
4
SINCE SAM WAS SO DISTRACTED, JOHN DROVE following Sam’s directions to the diner. The place was even more crowded than it had been when he’d been here earlier. Sam looked at his watch and realized that it wasn’t that late in the day; it was only 9:30 a.m. He’d gotten an awfully early start today. Dozens of people still crammed in to grab breakfast before heading to work.
John followed him in and looked around for a booth. Janie, the waitress, lifted her voice over the noise. “Good thing you came back, Sam, since you ran out of here without paying me this morning.”
Sam hadn’t thought of it until now. Embarrassed, he made his way to the counter. “I’m sorry, Janie. I wasn’t thinking clearly. But you knew I’d be back, didn’t you?”
“Sure,” Janie said, waving him off. “You’ve never stiffed me before.” She pointed to the boot
h in the corner. Two orderlies from the hospital were just leaving it. “Why don’t you take that one, and I’ll get Joe to come out and wipe the table for you. Joe!”
John looked around as if he was a little shell-shocked at the noise and crowd as they took the sticky table. Sam gestured toward Janie as they sat down. “I heard her voice this morning.”
“What did it say?” John asked.
“Something about rest. That it could change her whole life. That doesn’t sound like a spiritual need to me, does it to you?”
John considered that for a moment. “Jesus said, ‘Come to me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’”
Sam rubbed his jaw. “Sure did, didn’t he? How about that?”
“So did you tell her that?”
“No, I didn’t tell her anything. I didn’t know what was happening. It surprised me when I realized she didn’t know I’d heard her. And then that lady next to me said that thing about gravity letting her go, and—”
“Is she here now?”
Sam looked around. “No, she’s gone.”
“So how did you answer her?”
Sam grunted out his annoyance. “I didn’t. She got irritated when I tried, so I moved to another table.”
“Oh.” John was clearly disappointed. “Did you talk to anybody about what you heard?”
“Of course not. They would have called the police or something.” He stared across the table at his pastor, wondering what he expected.
“So what are you hearing right now?” John asked.
Sam drew in a deep breath and sat back in his booth, listening.
“I can’t do this alone.” The voice startled him, and he turned to the table next to theirs and saw a pregnant girl with a toddler.
He turned back to John and tried to cover his mouth. “The woman next to us—she said she can’t do this alone.”
John’s eyes danced like those of a kid at the gates of an amusement park. “Go tell her she doesn’t have to.”
Sam shifted in his seat. He was sorry he’d ever brought John into this. “I can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
“Because. She doesn’t know I heard her thoughts. She’ll think it’s a pickup line.”
“No, she won’t. If you go up and address her deepest spiritual need, you think she’s gonna turn you away?”
“Well, no, but . . . come on, John. I come here every day. I know some of these people. I don’t want them to start running from me.”
John’s expression fell. “He hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.” The words didn’t come through his lips, and Sam’s face grew hot.
He leaned forward, locking eyes with his pastor. “I have too heard what you’ve said, John. Stop thinking you’re a failure because I’m not Billy Graham.”
“God isn’t asking you to be Billy Graham,” John said. “Sam, why do you think God gave you this ability?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been asking myself that all morning. I guess it’s punishment for being lukewarm or something.”
“It’s not a punishment,” John whispered. “It’s a wonderful gift. What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t know. Of messing somebody’s head up. Of telling them the wrong thing. Of turning them off to religion altogether because they think I’m some kind of Bible-waving maniac.”
John seemed to look right into him. Sam hated that about him. “It’s not really any of those things, is it, Sam?”
“You got the gift too?” Sam demanded. “You think you can look into my heart and see what I’m feeling? Well, why don’t you just tell me what it is?”
John kept his eyes locked on Sam’s. “I think you’re embarrassed. Ashamed.”
“Ashamed!” He thought of leaving—just storming out in righteous indignation. “I’m not ashamed of my faith!”
“Then how many times have you told anybody else about it?”
“Plenty!” he said. “They can see by my life. People know that I don’t do business the same way they do. I treat others kindly. They know I’m active at church. They know, okay?”
“But how many times have you shared it out loud? In words? How many people have you led to Christ?”
“None that I know of, but that doesn’t mean I’m ashamed. It just means that the situation hasn’t come up.” He stopped and stared at his preacher across the table. Even without his gift, Sam knew what John was thinking. He was making excuses. Sam rubbed his face. “Look, John, there’s nothing I’d like better than to be able to say I’ve led a bunch of people to Christ. Every Christian would like to think that. But I’m not like you. That’s not my gift. I’m not bold that way. I mean, what if I get over there and start telling that woman about Jesus, and she asks me some theological question that I can’t answer, because frankly—and I’ll just be honest here—I haven’t studied the Bible all that much.”
“Do you know Jesus?” John asked.
Sam looked at him, astonished. “Yes, John! Can you really ask me that? You baptized me. I may not be the greatest Christian who ever lived, but I do have a relationship with Christ.”
“Then tell her about that,” John said. “That’s all she needs to know right now. That’s all you need to know right now.”
Sam couldn’t believe the pastor was putting him on the spot this way. Did John think it was that simple? “I don’t even know how to start the conversation. I mean, what do I do? Go plop down at her table and tell her that she doesn’t have to do this alone? What if she doesn’t even realize that was what she was thinking? What if—”
John’s eyes were laughing. “You know, Sam, Satan doesn’t have to do anything to foil your attempts to get the word out. You’re doing his job for him.”
Sam leaned back hard in his booth. “Oh, that’s low. That’s really low, John.”
“Why do you think God is letting you hear these voices?”
He clenched his hands into fists. “To drive me crazy.”
“No,” John said. “He obviously wants you to respond to them. You wouldn’t just be hearing these things if you weren’t supposed to respond in some way.”
“So you’re saying that every time I hear these voices I’m supposed to launch into some kind of amateur sermon?”
“Maybe that’s the plan.”
“I probably heard six voices at one time in the grocery store. Was I supposed to climb up on an egg crate and start preaching to them?”
“You tell me.”
“Come on, John!”
John looked over at the woman, and Sam followed his gaze. She was helping the child eat some hash browns while her other hand rubbed the top of her belly. “I’m scared,” Sam heard her say, though she hadn’t really said it. “I don’t want to do this.”
He wondered if she was headed to the hospital for an appointment. If there was a husband in her life. If she really was alone or just felt alone. Suddenly, he forgot where he and John were in their argument.
John had obviously forgotten too. The pastor slid out of the booth.
Sam caught his arm. “Where are you going?”
“Just right here to talk to this lady,” he whispered.
Sam let go and watched John approach her. “Ma’am, I’m John Ingalls, Pastor of Church of the Savior over on Post Road,” he said gently, “and I was just noticing this precious little girl.”
The young woman smiled. “Thank you.”
“Do you mind if I sit down for just a second? I’d like to talk to you if you have a minute.”
She shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.”
That was it, Sam thought. That was the place where he would have struck out. She would have taken one look at him and yelled for help. He’d often had that effect on women.
But John had that kind, non-threatening face. It was clear from a mile away that the man was a preacher.
Janie brought Sam coffee, and he began meticulously mixing the sugar and cream into it as he listened to the conversation at the next table.
“I noticed the way you kept rubbing your stomach,” John said. “I just wondered if you’re all right.”
She breathed a laugh. “Well, frankly, I may not be.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m kind of in labor.”
Sam’s head came up.
“Why aren’t you in the hospital?” John asked.
“I’ve been there already,” she said. “They told me I’m just in the early stages. That I should come back when the contractions are closer together. They said to walk around a little, relax . . .”
“Well, have you notified your husband?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have a husband.”
“Well, the baby’s father, then. Isn’t there—?”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and she put her hand over her mouth. The little girl looked up at her, touched her, as if the tears were familiar, yet still dreadful.
John leaned forward on the table and met her eyes. “You must be feeling pretty alone right now.”
Sam’s eyes shot across to John. He was using what Sam had told him about her need. She nodded fiercely. “That’s exactly how I’m feeling.”
“Do you have someone to keep this sweet little girl while you’re in the hospital?”
She wiped her eyes. “No. Social Services is going to take her until I get out. I don’t see why she can’t just stay there with me. She’s real good . . .” Her voice trailed off as she put her arm around the tiny child’s shoulders.
John was shaking his head. “Look, my wife and I would love to baby-sit for you while you’re in the hospital. We love kids, and our baby just went off to college this year. She could stay with us for as long as you want her to.”
The prospect seemed to trouble her more. She took the child’s hand and laced their fingers together. “Thank you, but I don’t know . . .”
“Of course you wouldn’t trust me just like that,” John said. “Call my church and ask about me. I could get my wife to come here so you could meet her. If you don’t feel good about us after all that, then we’ll just go our separate ways and leave you alone.”
She stared across the table. “Why would you do that? Baby-sit for someone you’ve never met?”
Miracles Page 3