About half way through the meal we suddenly became aware of a little girl’s voice, clear and sure. “Do you believe in Jesus, Uncle John?” Forks filled with food stopped halfway to our mouths. Uncle John managed to get by without answering directly. Instead he started to philosophy about religion or something more “grown-up”, but another question came bright and directly. “Do you believe in the Bible?”
Her pretty white dress stood out against the dark colors of the rest of the party seated near us. She was almost old-fashioned with flounces and frills, the rest looked as if they took no trouble to get dressed.
“Do you believe in the Bible?” The question still hung and Uncle John started to address the group about all the overwhelming evidence against the Bible. “So you don’t believe in the Bible and you don’t believe in Jesus? Do you believe in God?” It was as if she gave him another chance to reconsider.
At this stage, Uncle John came right out with his unbelief. No, he did not believe in all that stuff. Everybody else was quiet and we shamelessly eavesdropped. She seemed ready for this.
Her voice rang like a light in the darkness and the questions that followed had authority without being answered there that night. “Then who painted the skies blue? And made the snowflakes different? Who sends the rain and who tells the lightning where to go?”
Uneasiness had settled around the table and we waited. Uncle John was not answering, it was late and he had had a lot to drink. This was kid’s stuff. His wife politely asked our girl’s mother where she got everything from. The mother explained about a play-school where she was taught those things and it sounded as if she herself was uncertain about what was happening to her little girl.
For the last time that night the clear voice spoke again: “Well, I believe in Jesus, I believe in the Bible and I believe in God. And I will never ever not!”
We had forgotten to eat and now we continued. It was like having watched a film. We started talking about what it all meant, the implications of Uncle John not believing, the little girl’s message and her loneliness within her family as well as the implications for ourselves.
By now she had climbed onto her mother’s lap and wanted to know why Uncle John would not believe. Her mom explained that some people would not believe. She was sad now and even cried a bit. Her father wanted to make it better with some ice-cream, but Uncle John said there was ice-cream at home. Her father persisted and ordered her ice-cream. My husband almost shouted Hurrah!
While she was quietly spooning her ice-cream, I knew what I had to do. I waited until they were getting ready to leave and asked the mother’s permission to speak to the little girl on her lap. “I want to tell you,” I said, “I believe in Jesus, I believe in the Bible and I believe in God.” I wanted to encourage her, to strengthen her faith and let her know that she was not the only one in that restaurant following Jesus.
What I did not tell her was how she encouraged me to speak about my faith, how she made our anniversary a night never to be forgotten and how often I would echo her words in the years following: “I believe in Jesus and I will never ever not”.
OH come, let us sing to the LORD!
Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
For the LORD is the great God,
And the great King above all gods.
In His hand are the deep places of the earth;
The heights of the hills are His also.
The sea is His, for He made it;
And His hands formed the dry land.
Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
For He is our God.
And we are the people of His pasture,
And the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you will hear His voice:
“Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,
As in the day of trial in the wilderness,
When your fathers tested Me;
They tried Me, though they saw My work.
For forty years I was grieved with that generation,
And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,
And they do not know My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’” (Psalm 95)
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