Always Be Ready

In his first letter, Peter wrote to those of faith in the church, "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you..."  (I Peter 3:15).  The difficult word in this passage is not the word about speaking a word concerning the hope we have in Christ, but the word, "Always."  God is constantly dropping us into situations where an opportunity to speak of our hope is given to us.  There may be times when we are living with such an expectation, but for many of us, the awareness comes to us not as something about to happen, but as something which has happened.    

This afternoon in one of those waiting rooms in which we all find ourselves from time to time, I sat down nursing my impatience about being in such a place when a man of Asian descent sat down across from me.  Before I could really be comfortable in my chair, he was telling me about his wife of 38 years who was seriously ill.  As we talked I asked if he was of the Christian faith to which he replied that he was Buddhist and then he said, "There is one God.  We all pray to one God."  I thought of a friend who lives out in Lubbock, Texas who speaks of God as "the God of the universe."  The way my Texas friend speaks of God caused me to see this distressed man across from me as my brother and for whom I offered to pray.     

If we continue reading what Peter wrote we find him saying, "...Yet do it with gentleness and reverence."  (I Peter 3:16)  In that moment I saw this man whom God put in my path as someone who bore within himself the essence of the creating God of the universe.  He was not someone I needed to try to convert.  He was not someone whose faith was amiss.  He was my brother who was suffering with fears of losing his wife and I pray that my conversation was received as hopeful and healing and that my prayers for him have been full of a gentle spirit that regards him with reverence and love.