Jesus Are You Real?

This is the story of the beginning of my walk with Jesus.  Some of it isn’t pretty, but it must be said.

It was the fall of 1986.  The Michigan weather was gorgeous, but I was destined to spend the day indoors.  My wife and I were attending a “conference” on the Holy Spirit.  The first day of the conference was on a Friday.  I remember driving down to Ann Arbor, anticipating…

…what?  I wasn’t sure.  I do remember praying, “Jesus, if You are real, I want to know!”

As the Chrysler Arena started filling with people, I took a seat high up in the bleachers next to some friends to get a good view.  I got more than I bargained for.  Because the day had warmed quickly, most people dressed casually…and some women dressed skimpily.   I was thoroughly enjoying the view.

Eventually a man walked across the center of the stage and stopped.

“Come Holy Spirit.” he said.  The rumble of people talking subsided.

“Come Holy Spirit.”  he repeated.  Silence.

“Come Holy Spirit!”  he announced.  There was an uproar as some people started screaming.  I felt myself hurled into my seat as I felt a physical “presence” kick me as it left me.   In an instant, I realized how badly I had offended God by my musings about those women.  I was crying, asking forgiveness  and laughing at the same time that I was being forgiven.  My senses were simply overwhelmed.

The rest of the day was eventful, but something more important happened on the next day.  We decided to come early so we skipped breakfast and arrived at the arena an hour before the conference was to begin.  I had hoped to meet some of the conference organizers and ask all kinds of questions.

As I was cruising around the arena at a fast walk, I rounded a corner and smacked into Dan, the last person I wanted to see there.  We literally bounced off each other as Dan seemed to be walking at a fast clip in the opposite direction with his wife.

I muttered, “Scuse me!” and kept walking.

You see, Dan was my nemesis.

Ten years earlier, I was a successful salesman for an insurance company.  My income was approaching six figures and my company asked me if I would take over as manager of an exclusive territory that encompassed half of the state.  They pumped my up with all kinds of ideas of how good it would be until I realized six months later that nothing was happening.  Meanwhile, I had signed the lease on a larger office and expected Dan to send me new recruits to fill my office.

To my dismay, I had found instead that Dan brought up a friend of his from Indiana, leased him an office and recruited a dozen new agents to work for him…a half a mile from my office!  I voiced my displeasure at the next company conference and was reassured that, no, they weren’t going to kick out Dan’s friend from my territory, but they would take care of things to my satisfaction.  Six months later I had not had a single viable recruit, and my best friend in the business decided to quit and go to dental school, so I was alone in the office.

When I sent in my resignation letter, the company attorney called me to tell me to leave all my files at their office and that I had a non-compete clause in my contract that said I could not talk with my existing clients for five years!

My income went from a comfortable one to one fifth my  former compensation with an expensive and empty office lease to boot.  I barely escaped filing for bankruptcy.  In the meantime I found that Dan served as a pastor of a small protestant “bible church” where several of my friends attended.

I hated Dan for it.  I wanted to tell all my friends who went to his church what he had done.  Thankfully, I kept my silence, but I wasn’t any better for it.  I couldn’t stand to see the sight of him.

That brings me full circle back to Chrysler Arena when I “bumped into” Dan.

As I walked away from our collision, there was nothing that I wanted to do more than to get away from him.

Suddenly, a Voice told me, “Tony, you have to forgive Dan.”

I turned around to see who spoke and saw no one.  “I must be having an active imagination,” I told myself.  I kept walking.

“Tony, turn around and forgive Dan.”  startled me.  The hallway was empty.  I looked around, trying to find the source of that Voice.

Then it hit me.  “But Lord, You know how much Dan hurt me and my family.”

“I have a plan for you, but it cannot come to pass unless you can forgive Dan.”

My heart sank.

I replied, “Okay.  You know my heart isn’t in this, Lord.  Please don’t make it any more difficult than it already is.”

I turned around and found Dan speaking with his wife not far from where we collided.

I tapped him on the shoulder.  “Can we speak privately over there?”  I pointed to a vacant nook in the wall out of the way of passers-by.

A minute later he approached me.

“The Lord asked me to forgive you.”

Dan replied, “I don’t know wha…..”

The look on his face told me he knew.

I finished, “I forgive you and I love you as a brother in Christ.”

I left him dumbstruck as I walked away.

The Voice over my shoulder encouraged me, “You did it, Tony.”

The next morning, Linda, one of Dan’s “parishioners” approached me.

“I understand you talked with Dan yesterday.”

“Yes, I did.”

“I’m curious, what did you say to him?”

“Well, that’s a private matter between Dan and me.”

“Whatever you said to him sure has changed him.”

“I needed to be changed, too.”

I learned a few months later that Dan had accepted the pastorship of a much larger church in Boulder Colorado.  I have not seen him since our encounter.

Now I know that Jesus is real.  Isn’t He wonderful?