Did you ever get the feeling that God puts people in your path for a reason, even if you don’t know why? A forgotten friend calls up. A long lost relative returns. A stranger in need crosses your path. Or you’re in need, and a stranger crosses your path.
I’ve had occasions when someone I offended years ago pops up out of nowhere … and I know what that means. As much as I want to run and hide, it’s time for a long-overdue apology and reconciliation. It all happens in God’s perfect timing.
Then, there was that phone call recently from my old college roommate Lenny, whom I hadn’t seen in decades. When you get calls like that, there are two possibilities—someone needs some thing or God is at work. Often times it’s both.
We were college students in New York City during the Vietnam era. A bona fide odd couple. He was from the Congo, and I was from a place called Pine Rock Park in Shelton.
As diverse as our backgrounds were, we did have a few similarities. We both smoked, we both drank and we both liked to party and pretend we were intellectuals by carrying around books by Fredrich Nietzsche, Albert Camus and any fashionable nihilist.
I’ve discovered that in these reunions, you generally talk about the past and you talk about the present. Then you conclude the only things you still have in common are lower back pain, thinning hair and the high cost of prescription drugs … and perhaps, hopefully, Jesus.
In the intervening years, Lenny became a new man, not in the way Nietzsche described them, but in the way St. Paul did, as someone who has put on Christ.
After a few Google searches, I discovered he taught at two Christian universities for 40 years, gave a talk at University of Notre Dame on the Rwandan genocide because he is a Tutsi, the minority ethnic group that had one million people killed during the genocide in 1994. He also had a Bible study podcast.
Our reunion on the phone —he on the West Coast and I on the East—didn’t focus on the usual litany of ailments or a recitation of our resumes, fortunately. Instead, it focused on our faith journeys. During those decades apart, each of us at different times and in different ways, had Christ come into our lives. And that made all the difference. Wouldn’t you rather talk about Jesus than someone’s latest promotion or the presidential election?
Listening to his story gave me hope because I have many friends and family members who haven’t found Christ yet. Some are still looking. Others never started because they’re chasing the false gods of success, possessions, pleasure and prestige, which, the older you get, the more you realize how little they ultimately matter.
Lenny didn’t return to the Congo. He studied economics and had a promising career in a major corporation, until he reached the point many people never reach and began asking himself, “Is this all there is?” So he prayed for an answer. The wonderful thing is that when you pray for answers, you get answers. God never disappoints.
One day, while he was walking alone on the beach in Florida, three missionaries approached him and started talking about Jesus. He always enjoyed philosophical discussions, so he engaged them. A day later, they brought him to a church service and prayed over him, and things were never the same again. God kept putting people in his path, who led him where he was meant to go, in his career and in his spiritual life.
He got a doctorate in philosophy and taught at two Christian universities, raised a family, lectured and now is semi-retired. But our discussion didn’t end there. The discussion never ends when you have Christ in common because there’s always a future, and it’s a glorious future filled with hope. Besides, no matter how old you are, Jesus won’t let you retire while there’s still work to be done.
Yes, old friendships are made new because Christ makes all things new. We both agreed that after so many years apart, we’d rather talk about Christ than talk about inflation, climate change, the Yankees, the Mets—you name it—because Jesus can resurrect old friendships in a new and meaningful ways.
