The road sign in front of my workplace is our twitter-like mission to the community. The church uses the sign to post messages of encouragement or thought provoking ideas in short phrases that can be read by cars going 30 mph down the road in front of the building. I hope that people reading those messages can use them. Every so often the messages provoke a response from a (usually anonymous) reader--an email message to the church office or a phone call. Never, until this morning, have we had a face-to-face response.This morning I met a young man in our lobby who came in and asked me, "What's the message?" I didn't get the reference until he asked me again, "The sign. What's the message?"
He was a young-ish, maybe mid thirties, clean cut, not threatening.
I said, "The message is: God loves you," and then I asked him if he would like to pray. He clearly did. We did. He visibly relaxed. I asked him if he needed anything else. (We often get requests for money from passers by.) He said no, that had been enough and it helped. He left as quickly as he had come. It seemed that was all he needed--just reassurance that the God of the universe did indeed love him, in all his particularity, whatever that happened to be this morning. Such a simple message and so life giving. Words on a sign, and a response--God signs. We need all the signs we can get.
