I Forgot to Ask His Name

I saw him in the Miami Airport waiting for his flight to board a few chairs away from me. His hair was longer than mine, twisted into two dozen thick dreadlocks or so. Around his neck hung a chain with a heavy medallion that reminded me of the hindu idols that clutter the streets and shelves of India.

Our flight finally began to board. I couldn't help but pray that no one would sit next to me - it was my third flight that day, and my internal clock told me it was long past my bed time. I watched as he maneuvered down the plane aisle and stopped at my row. Heaving an internal sigh, I twisted in my aisle seat so he could get by, secretly hoping he would sit by the window so I had at least a semi valid excuse not to make conversation. He took the middle.

My conscious pricked me.

I tried to ignore it.

I glanced his way briefly as he fidgeted with the arm rest, trying to figure out how to make his seat recline. In his free hand he held a paper back with something about the 'wisdom of the Zen masters' in the title. Now I really didn't want to talk to this guy.

I didn't have a choice.

He turned to me and asked if I lived in California. After debating with myself for a moment I decided it would be easiest to say yes - I wasn't about to go into the complexities of fully answering that question. Besides, giving him a full explanation would necessitate sharing that I was a missionary's daughter, and I had a feeling that would rub him the wrong way.

Again my conscious pricked me. Or maybe I should call it the Holy Spirit's proding. My missions class from college flooded my mind, as it does almost every time I fly. "What better opportunity do you have the share the Gospel with someone than on a plane? Whether they like it or not the person sitting next to you is stuck there for the next 'X amount' of hours. Tell them about Jesus!"

It seemed God had a different plan for the final leg of my journey to California than I did.

Before I knew it I found myself in a deep discussion with this Jamaican man on a quest to become one with the earth. We talked for more than half the cross-country flight about the purpose of life, love, death, and peace. He talked in circles and I tried to follow his thought trains with little success. I talked about the Bible and the One it was written about, and he tried to convince me Jesus was just one representation of many 'gods' including Allah and all the spirit beings of the Native Americans. 

His 'lostness' hit me in the face.

The funny thing was, between bouts of twisted logic and misinterpreted experiences there was a lot of truth coming out of this mystic man's mouth. Things like the importance of loving one another. Things like forgiveness. Things like the sanctity of human life. He kept returning to this one thought - that the purpose of life was to become fully human. When I asked him what that meant, he said it meant to be perfect.

The purpose of life is to become fully human. In a sense, he was right. To be fully human is to be what God created us to be: perfect - sinless worshipers of the Almighty. Of course my neighbor was referring to becoming one with the earth and thus being elevated to the place of god, so that all was god and god was all. The depth of the deception that had trapped my dreadlocked friend's heart was close to bringing me to tears.

It occurred to me that the best lies are interwoven with truth. As the king of deception, Satan is the master of masking falsehood with fact, fiction with truth. Because we are made by God for God we are ingrained with a relentless thirst for His truth and, I believe,  endowed with a certain ability to recognize it. However our sin natures so recoil from the truth we so desperately crave that we choose to coat partial truths in lies, like a chocolate covered raisin, just to make it go down easier. Were it not for the truth in the lies I'm convinced no one would believe them, least of all the man sitting next to me - he was far from unintelligent.

Shame on me! How could I have been so reluctant to be the light God created me to be!? How could I have balked at an opportunity to share the Gospel and shine a ray of truth into the lie ridden state of this man's mind? Father forgive me. 

As the conversation wore on I became increasingly aware of my burning eyes and the fog that was gradually creeping over my exhausted mind. Our conversation lost its direction, began to repeat itself, and eventually ended. I tried find a comfortable sleeping position underneath my airline provided blanket, and he assumed a yoga/meditation pose. We landed in Los Angeles ahead of schedule and de-planed in short working order. I caught my last sight of him from across the baggage claim area. I doubt I'll ever see him again.

I've thought of that conversation often since then. I pray that some small seed was planted amid all the conversation.

My purpose in posting this is almost as much for my own processing purposes as it is to ask my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to pray. Not only for this man, but for the lost millions that are just like him - blind.

My heart is heavy for them; my heart is heavy for the dreadlocked man with the Zen master's book - and I don't even know his name.

For I [will not be] ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes... Romans 1:16