“I’ll tell you what I’m looking for,” said José, as though he doubts such a thing exists.
“At the end of the Gospel of Luke, after Jesus comes back to life, Jesus goes up to heaven, right?”
“Yes, of course,” I say, anxiously trying to encourage this stream of thought. This conversation is the first I’ve had with a Spaniard where I wasn’t the one awkwardly bringing up spiritual things.
“So He’s floated up into the clouds. And the disciples, they can’t see Him anymore, but they’re still looking up. It’s like they’re afraid to look at each other because they’re afraid about what might come next.”
I’m still listening intently, unsure of where José might be going with this.
“In that moment, the disciples were at their most vulnerable, yet most committed moment of their lives. That’s what I’m looking for – a group of believers who have had an experience with God Himself, and then are willing to stand together and say, ‘Okay, now what?’”
If you ask José when he became a believer, he’ll tell you that he’s always been one. He grew up in the Catholic church, but dismisses the dwindling (and aging) numbers of mass-goers as “dead people.” He can’t point to a particular point in his life when he “said a prayer” or “got saved,” But there’s no doubt that this man’s life has been touched by the Most High God, and that he has a relationship with Him through Jesus.
My conversation with José was the beginning of our house church in Spain. I didn’t “evangelize” him. I didn’t find him – we really weren’t even looking. No, we were just looking up to the Lord, focused on Him, scared to death of what might come next, and God brought him to us.
