“You used a Black & Decker drill to perform surgery on a man in jail?” That was my response a few years ago as an OB-GYN doctor serving in medical missions in Africa told her story while we were gathered around our dining room table. Even better was the fact that this man later came to believe in Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior (John 3:16; Romans 3:23; 6:23; 10:9-13).
This story was one of probably a thousand or more in my lifetime! Growing up in a pastor’s home provided many opportunities for evangelists, college presidents, pastors, and missionaries to put their feet under our kitchen table and/or sleep in our guest bedroom.
I can remember as a grade school aged boy sitting at the kitchen table after an evening church service listening to all kinds of ministry stories. Those memories are also a part of my junior and senior high school days as well as college.
With eyes wide open and ears open even wider, those narratives told me that life was full of blessings, fun, hardships, trials, laughter, questions, burdens, answers to prayer, rich in Bible knowledge and application, and tears to name a few. But no doubt about it, those stories from real Christians revealed a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ and an unshakable faith in an awesome, faithful, promise-keeping God!
Interesting enough, I did not learn until long after I had left home that it was my dad who invited most of those folks home. My mom really did not like duty in the kitchen. That was just not her “cup-of-tea.” I share this to encourage you. Our meals were usually very simple. The table was not elaborately set. Mom used what she had, and in our early days at home, that was not much.
You see, it was not the food at the table I remember or how the table was decorated that has left an indelible impression upon me. Most assuredly, it was all those hours in the presence of simple servants of the Lord.
How grateful I am that many, many times, my folks would let me stay up on a school night way past bedtime to sit under the influence of such godly men and women. The eternal influence in their eyes was always more important than the temporal influence.
May I encourage you to host missionaries, evangelists, preachers, and other servants of the Lord in your home? How cool it is to have a faithful missionary from a far-away land while eating dessert share accounts of God’s grace, protection, and answers to prayer! What an impact it is to listen to a preacher tell about a lost soul receiving Christ as his Savior or expound the Word while eating a grilled cheese sandwich! Oh, how wonderful to hear a college president while enjoying a bowl of corn chowder share how the Lord provided the school’s needs at just the right time!
Parents, your children need to experience this! They need to experience it often.
Prepare the guest room, fix some sandwiches and invite a servant of the Lord into your home. By the way, be sure to open your ears, too!
