The Heart Reader

by Terri Blackstock

  They each looked at him as if he’d just suggested going for a swim in a sewer.

  “I have a Boy Scout meeting with my son tomorrow night,” Bill said. “I can’t go with you.”

  He looked at Jeff. “What about you?”

  Jeff shook his head. “No, I told Andrea I’d be home tomorrow night. After being out tonight and choir practice Wednesday night . . .”

  “Bring her with you,” Sam said. “She’ll love it. She’ll really get into it.”

  Jeff compressed his lips. “I said no, Sam. Not tomorrow.”

  Sam looked at Steve across the table. “Come on, Steve, you can come with me.”

  Steve shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . not ready for that.”

  “Ready for that?” Sam asked. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m not prepared. I don’t know what to say to people. You know, I have considered taking that evangelism class John told us about Sunday, maybe learning a few verses of Scripture, practice a little, learn how to share my faith before I actually go out there and do it.”

  “Man, you don’t need a script.” Sam looked from one man to the next, crushed that he couldn’t persuade them. “If you could just hear what’s going on in people’s hearts!”

  Bill gaped at him. “Like you can?”

  Sam wanted to tell them, but he knew they’d never believe it. “Bill, it’s our job to go out and tell people.”

  Bill blew out a sigh, then looked at his watch. “It’s getting late, and I’m tired.”

  Sam stiffened. “We didn’t get our drinks yet.”

  “I know, but I’m getting a headache.” Bill got to his feet. “Let’s just go.”

  “Am I making you that uncomfortable?” Sam asked. “Man, I’ve looked you in the eye and questioned your parenting. I’ve challenged you about your prayer life. I’ve held you accountable for your language. You’ve never gotten hot at me before. Why now?”

  Bill sat back down and rubbed his face. “I’m not mad, Sam. I just don’t quite get where this is coming from.”

  “Maybe . . . God? Ya think?”

  The other men kept their eyes riveted on his, and suddenly Sam realized he was going about this all wrong. He didn’t need to shame them into talking about Jesus. What he needed to do was get them excited, fill them with stories about what had happened to him today. The joys and the victories. “Guys, just listen for a minute. I want to tell you about some of the people I talked to today. Just open your minds and listen.”

  The waitress came back with their drinks, and the four of them sat there as Sam went on and on about the pregnant woman with the little girl, and Janie, the waitress, and the man tonight who had wept and accepted Christ at the stadium. At last he ran out of stories, and they sat, uncomfortably quiet.

  He wondered if he should give up. “I’ve really put a damper on the whole night, haven’t I?”

  “No, it’s just late.” Bill’s voice was flat. “I’m tired. Need to get home.”

  “All right.” He got up and followed them wearily to the car. They got in one by one, none of them saying a word. Sam was the first one Bill took home. When they pulled into his driveway, Sam waited a moment before getting out. “Guys, I’m really sorry for coming on so strong tonight, but this is serious business.” He hesitated, waited for some kind of response, but there was only silence. He opened the door. When it was clear that they were all waiting for him to get out, he did. “See you guys later,” he said in a weak voice.

  They muttered their good-byes, and he closed the door. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he walked to the front of his house. “Help them, Lord,” he whispered before he went inside. “Work on them like you worked on me. Give them a chance to know this joy.”

  9

  Kate was already in bed when Sam came in. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. She smiled and hugged him. “John called. Said he needs to talk to you, no matter how late.”

  “Good.”

  “How did it go with the guys?”

  Sam began unbuttoning his shirt. “They may never speak to me again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I made them uncomfortable.” He sank down on the mattress next to her and slumped over with his elbows on his knees. “Oh, Kate. I was awful. I was sarcastic and accusing . . . No wonder I didn’t make any headway with them.”

  “You should have just witnessed to someone else right there in front of them, like you did me. Let them overhear you telling someone about Jesus. That would have done it.”

  “Yeah,” he said, regretting the missed opportunities. “There was a waitress in Shoney’s who really had a deep need. I was too distracted with them, so I didn’t talk to her.”

  “You can go back tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” He got up. “I’d better let you sleep. You have to get up early.”

  She turned over to go back to sleep, and Sam went into the living room, too revved up for bed. It was just after ten. He wondered if John was still awake. He was glad the pastor needed to talk. He could use an ear himself.

  He dialed John’s number.

  “Hello?”

  “John? It’s me, Sam.”

  “Hey, Sam. I just wanted to touch base with you and see how things are going. Kate said you’d been turning the stadium upside down.”

  “Yeah,” he said, as the joy began to return. “Man, you should’ve been there. Tonight at the ball game, I kept hearing the voices. It was driving me crazy, so I went to the concession area and started talking to people as they came by.”

  “All by yourself?” John chuckled. “This morning you were scared to death to talk to strangers.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but you helped me through it. Then I got Kate involved and she started doing it.”

  John began to laugh, and Sam grinned. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know why I’m always so surprised when prayers are answered,” John said.

  “You prayed about this?”

  “I pray for all of you, all the time. I pray and beg and plead with God to give us revival so our members will be bold about sharing their faith, and now this is happening. I feel like a teenaged boy who just got a new car or something. Do you realize what could happen to our church because of this? If other people start to catch your zeal, and people are led to Christ, and—”

  “Well, don’t get too excited,” Sam cut in. “It doesn’t seem to be working like that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, tonight, I told Bill, Jeff, and Steve about all the people I’d talked to today and how I was feeling.”

  “Did you tell them about the voices?”

  “No,” he said. “I didn’t think they could handle that. You gotta admit, that’s like something out of the Twilight Zone. I just told them your sermon Sunday got to me and that I had started to feel an urgency.”

  “That’s good,” John said.

  “And true. But the problem is, they weren’t that interested. In fact, they’re pretty steamed at me right now. All of them.”

  “Why?”

  Sam shook his head. “I told them all about what I had come to understand today. I told them about the people we had visited and what had happened. They just sat there looking at me like I was crazy, like they were upset that I would have the gall to tell them about this.”

  “It challenged them,” John said. “I can get away with it from the pulpit, but one on one, face to face, they don’t like it very much.”

  “But I heard their needs, John. I heard what they feel. That they need to be used. It’s something they want. The Holy Spirit in them is crying out to do something.”

  “But their flesh is so weak, they don’t realize they want it,” John said.

  “They had all these excuses. Boy Scouts and time with their wives—which never kept them from doing anything before—and fear of saying the wrong thing. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me,�
� John said. “I deal with it every day. Ninety-nine percent of the congregation is just like them.”

  “What about this evangelism class you mentioned?” Sam asked. “Didn’t it start yesterday?”

  “Yeah.” John sounded underwhelmed.

  “Well, how did it go? Maybe I could call on some of them.”

  John was quiet as he seemed to consider that. “I had high hopes for that class,” he said. “I thought the preparation would shoot through some of their excuses. I thought maybe I’d have a couple dozen people show up, but it didn’t work out that way.”

  “How many did you have?”

  “Just a handful. Less than a handful.”

  “Well, still. That’s some. Maybe I could call them and they could go out with me tomorrow night.”

  “All right,” John said. “I’ll give you their names. They’re people who really do want to be fruitful. Maybe they’ll agree to go.” By the time he got off the phone with John, Sam realized it was too late to call anyone else. He set his list by the phone for the next day, then fell into bed, exhausted, and thought about the dream that had plagued him the night before. He wondered if he would dream tonight. He wondered if, when he woke, that gift would still be there.

  But the next morning, when he got up, he realized it was still there when he heard Kate’s voice yearning for another person to lead to Christ today. Not able to make himself wait longer, he began to call down the list John had given him. The first person he reached told him he couldn’t go out, that he was afraid and was hoping that the class itself would help him with the fear factor.

  “Words don’t come easy for me,” the man said. “I just would feel better if you could wait a couple of weeks.”

  The next person said something similar. “I’ve already got plans tonight. Tickets to the musical. My wife would kill me if I backed out.”

  One by one, he went down the list of hopefuls, and though his call was met with a little more interest than he had seen the night before, he had the distinct impression that these people were terrified of doing what he had done yesterday. Was there no one in the church who would help him with this harvest? No one other than the preacher?

  He took Kate to work and headed to the diner to get breakfast, wondering if Janie had changed her mind overnight or forgotten their talk yesterday. But as he walked in, he could see that something was different in her. She was beaming, and she looked rested. It was clear that Christ was still with her. The normal chaos in the diner seemed more settled today, and even the cook was quieter.

  He took a place at the counter and waited to hear the voices that would bombard him as soon as anyone got near. Janie came rushing up to him the moment she spotted him. “Hi, Sam. Listen, I tried to call you last night, but you weren’t home. I needed to ask you something.”

  “Sure, what?”

  “My sister. I want to tell her what you told me yesterday, only I’m afraid I don’t know what to say. I want her to know Jesus too, and I was wondering if you would come with me to talk to her. I mean, I’ll do the talking, but I thought it might be better if you came along so that if she has questions, or if I do, you’ll be there to answer them. There’s nothing worse than me trying to explain something I don’t completely understand myself.”

  He looked up at her, his eyes bright with emotion. “Janie, I would be honored.”

  “Can you do it tonight after you get off work? I told her I was gonna come about seven.”

  “Yes, I can come then.”

  “Then, if it’s not too much trouble, I wondered if you would come with me to the restaurant where my son works as a waiter. He takes a break at nine o’clock, and I was really hoping that we could talk to him and some of his friends . . .”

  Sam couldn’t believe it. He’d spent all last night and this morning trying to find someone in his church to help him with the harvest, and already one of his fruits from yesterday was anxious to reproduce. Was this the way it was supposed to work? he thought. Maybe it was.

  “I tell you what, if you don’t think it’ll be too many people, I’ll bring Kate with me tonight too. Then if we need to split your son and his buddies up and talk to them one on one, there’ll be more of us to go around.”

  Janie was almost dancing as she considered that. “Meet me here at six-thirty, and we’ll head out,” she said. “This is gonna be so much fun!”

  10

  Once again, Sam was earlier to work than most of the people in his building. His secretary wasn’t in yet, but someone had made coffee. He poured himself a cup, then went into his office. He dug through the bottom drawer of his file cabinet and took out his Bible. An old church bulletin marked his place, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d read from it.

  There was so much he needed to know, he thought. So much that still eluded him about Christ. People would ask. He needed to be prepared. He wished he’d memorized more Scripture. He wished he’d hidden it in his heart.

  A new hunger to know the Word overwhelmed him, and he began to read, marking passages and writing in the margins, trying to commit verses to memory. He didn’t notice as the employees began to fill the building and the work day officially began. So when someone knocked on his door, he was startled. He looked up and saw his boss, Rob Simpson, with one of his biggest advertising clients standing behind him.

  “Sam, I thought you might like to know that Mr. Hagle is here.” Sam got up and came around the desk, extending his hand. “Mr. Hagle, it’s great to see you.”

  “Sorry I missed you yesterday,” the man said. “I took Rob to lunch.”

  “I wasn’t feeling well,” Sam said. “Long story, but I’m better today.”

  The man glanced at Sam’s desk. “What’s that you’re reading?”

  “The Bible,” Sam said. He looked at his clock and realized eight o’clock had come and gone. “Guess it’s time to be putting that up.”

  He heard a voice coming from the client, though his lips only moved in small talk. “I wish there was something in there for me. Light at the end of my tunnel.”

  Sam seized the opportunity to pounce before he could lose his nerve. “You know, Mr. Hagle, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Bible. If you haven’t, you ought to give it a try. It sure does add light to the end of a long, dark tunnel.”

  The man’s face changed. Frowning, he locked eyes with Sam. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Sam nodded. Rob hurried the client out of the room, and Sam stepped into the doorway and watched until they’d turned the corner. Sam went back to his desk, closed his Bible, and put it away. He began working on the account that was sitting on his desk, calling for his attention. After a few moments, the phone buzzed. He picked it up. “Sam Bennett.”

  “Sam, this is Rob. I want to see you in my office. Now.”

  Sam closed his eyes. Maybe he had made a mistake mentioning the Bible and his faith to a client. Was Rob about to chew him out? He hurried to his boss’s office and knocked on the door. He heard a gruff, “Come in.”

  Slowly, he walked inside. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to see you,” Rob said, leaning back in his chair. “I want to talk to you about what just happened.”

  “What did just happen?” Sam asked, taking the chair across from his desk.

  “I bring a client by your office, and you’re sitting there reading the Bible, of all things. And as if that isn’t bad enough, you have the gall to start telling him that he needs to be reading it.” Rob got to his feet and began pacing back and forth across the office. “How do you think that makes the company look? How much faith do you think that man’s going to put in us, when he sees you soaking up a bunch of superstitious philosophies and telling him he needs to do it?”

  Heat rushed to Sam’s face. “Look, Rob, I didn’t know you were coming to my office. I came in here early this morning and started reading. The time got away from me.”

  “You were reading it on our time,” Rob said. “It wasn’t your
time—it was our time. You never know when a client’s going to stop by. You can’t let them catch you doing something so stupid—”

  “It was not stupid,” Sam said, springing to his feet. “That is God’s Word, not some stupid, superstitious philosophy, as you refer to it.” It was the first time he’d lost his temper with his boss, and he knew he was getting dangerously close to losing his job.

  Then he heard the voice, coming from Rob’s soul, deep within him, too loud to ignore. “I can’t stand my life anymore.”

  The words stopped Sam cold.

  “My tunnel’s so dark and so long that it’s already swallowed up all the light.”

  Sam’s anger vanished, and he looked into his boss’s eyes and felt a compassion that he hadn’t felt before. “Rob, the light can’t be swallowed up.”

  Rob shot him a disgusted look. “What are you talking about? What light?”

  “The light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “The darkness is never gonna swallow the light, because it’s God’s light and it’s there, in his Word.”

  “It’s a book!” he yelled. “Just words on a piece of paper, and I don’t want it in my company. I will not have it ruining the credibility that we have with our clients. Either you get that through your head or you pack up your office and get out of here.”

  Sam realized that his boss was hurting. Something was going on in his life, and since he couldn’t read his thoughts, but only the general emptiness of his spirit, he didn’t have a clue what it could be. He grabbed a pad from Rob’s desk and began to write.

  “What are you doing?” Rob demanded.

  Sam tore the page off and handed it to Rob. “This is my home number. I want you to call me any time you want to talk. I mean any time, night or day. Two in the morning. I don’t care.”

  “Why would I call you in the middle of the night?”