Beth
Moore
Apr 20, 2005
Knoxville Airport -
Waiting
to board the plane: I had the Bible on my lap
and was very
intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning
with the
Lord.
I
say that because I want to tell you it is a scary
thing to have the
Spirit of God really working in you.
You
could end up doing some things you never would
have done otherwise.
Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons
not the
least of which is your ego...
I
tried to keep from staring but he was such a
strange sight. Humped
over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed
in clothes that
obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier.
His knees
protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked
like the coat
hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like
tangled masses
of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his
hair and nails.
Stringy grey hair hung well over his shoulders and down
part of his
back. His fingernails were long.
Clean,
but strangely out of place on an old man.
I
looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort
burning my face.
As I tried to imagine what his story might have been,
I found myself
wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting.
Then,
I remembered reading somewhere that he was dead.
So, who was
this man in the airport... an impersonator maybe? Was
a camera on us
somewhere?....
There
I sat trying to concentrate on the Word to keep
from being
concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a
wheelchair only a
few seats from me. All the while my heart was growing
more and more
overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let's admit it. Curiosity
is a
heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly
I was awash with
aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.
I
had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting
on the wall.
I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels,
something so
contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is
bound to
happen. And it may be embarrassing.
I
immediately began to resist because I could feel
God working on my
spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind.
"Oh
no, God, please no." I looked up at the
ceiling as if I could
stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don't
make me witness
to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do
anything. Put
me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and
witness to
this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!"...
There
I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please
don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it
on the
plane."
Then
I heard it..."I don't want you to witness
to him. I want you to
brush his hair."
The
words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat,
and my
thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or
brush his hair?
No brainer.
I
looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, "God,
as I live and
breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to
this man. I'm on
this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness
to a man
faster in your life. What difference does it make if
his hair is a
mess if he is not redeemed? I am on him. I am going to
witness to
this man."
Again,
as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word,
God seemed to
write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That
is not what I
said, Beth.
I
don't want you to witness to him. I want you
to go brush his hair."
I
looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have
a hairbrush. It's in my
suitcase on the plane, how am I suppose to brush his
hair without a
hairbrush?"...
God
was so insistent that I almost involuntarily
began to walk toward
him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I
will thoroughly
furnish you unto all good works." (2 Tim 3:17) I
stumbled over to the
wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I
retell this
story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies.
I
knelt down in front of the man, and asked as
demurely as possible,
" Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"
He
looked back at me and said, "What did you
say?"
"May
I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"
To
which he responded in a "Volume Ten" voice, "Little
lady, if you
expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder
than that."
At
this point, I took a deep breath and blurted
out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE
THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"
At
which point every eye in the place darted right
at me. I was the
only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old
Mr. Long locks.
Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I
watched him look
up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If
you really want
to."
Are
you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But
God didn't seem
interested in my personal preference right about then.
He pressed on
my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes, sir,
I would be pleased.
But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."
"I
have one in my bag," he responded. I went
around to the back of
that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and
unzipped the
stranger's old carry-on bag, hardly believing what I
was doing. I
stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It
was perfectly
clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many
things well,
but I must admit I've had notable experience untangling
knotted hair
mothering two little girls.
Like
I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such
a condition, I
began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering
to take
my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me
as I started
brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room
seemed to
have disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments
except
that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed
until
every tangle was out of that hair.
I
know this sounds so strange but I've never felt
that kind of love
for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all
my heart, I --
for that few minutes -- felt a portion of the very love
of God. That
He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone
renting a
room and making Himself at home for a short while. The
emotions were
so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's.
His
hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's.
I slipped the
brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face
him. I got back
down on my knees, put my hands on his knees, and said, "Sir,
do you
know my Jesus?"
He
said, "Yes, I do."
Well,
that figures.
He
explained, "I've known Him since I married
my bride."
"She
wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He
said, "You
see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months.
I've had
open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see
me. I was
sitting here thinking to myself, "What a mess I
must be for my bride."
Only
God knows how often He allows us to be part of
a divine moment
when we're completely unaware of the significance. This,
on the other
hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God
had intervened
in details only He could have known. It was a God moment,
and I'll
never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were
not on the same
plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier,
and would have
been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
I
still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my
things to board, the
airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming
down her
cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the
plane, sobbing. Why
did you do that?
What
made you do that?"
I
said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the
bossiest thing!"
And
then we got to share.
I
learned something about God that day. He knows
if you're exhausted
because you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place
or it is time
to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He
knows if you're
hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick,
or drowning
under a wave of temptation. Or, He knows if you just
need your hair
brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your
need!
I
got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat,
wondering how many
opportunities just like that one had I missed along the
way... all
because I didn't want people to think I was strange.
God didn't send
me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.
John
1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his
dwelling among us. We
have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who
came from the
Father, full of grace and truth..."
