Take off your pants and get in the ocean

Months ago, before China and all its adventures, I drove down to the coast. My China orientation/training session was near Mobile, so I went early--looking forward to some time alone on the beach--trying to get my heart and head ready for China.

Sitting on the beach, I think that I even asked for Father to give me the Lessons that I would need for my new Tasks. At this point—after His dramatic answer to my request that He hurry up and “do something” with my life (I lost my PR job THE NEXT DAY)—I should have known better than to idly request something without being ready for it.

 A woman and a young girl played in the surf in front of me on the beach, catching jellyfish in their net and pausing passers-by for a look. Given my intense (and I mean, pathologically INTENSE) fear of sea creatures, I must have been staring at the net with some seriousness—which the woman seemed to interpret as interest. She began walking towards me with the net—so I interrupted my cell phone conversation to wave her away. “That’s ok—I don’t want to see anything,” I said with a fake smile while my muscles tensed, ready to run if she came close to me with the blob. She went back into the surf and I went back to my phone.

Until she came up again. This time, she stood there over me, cocked her head to the side and said, “So what? You come all the way to the beach and don’t get in the water?”

Whaaaa? For all she knew, I could have been in the water all day—all WEEK! For all she knew, I could have a house just down the beach and could have lived there my whole life—spending YEARS of my life in the water with no travel needed!

So yeah—I told her that I’d been in the water (big lie) and would be getting in again tomorrow (another big lie—too afraid of the creatures) and that I was just trying to rest for now. She smiled and left and I went back to my thoughts or prayers or whatever it was at that moment.

Until she came back and without pause or intro said: “Take off your pants and get in the ocean with me.”

Good lord, I thought.

And then I paused and wondered…good Lord?

So I did it. I took off my pants and got in the ocean with her.

******

We always hear that phrase about entertaining angels in disguise and think about it as if we are the ones BENEFITING the recipient of our hospitality. Like—those lucky angels who get our hospitality… and we hope that we can be the ones who get extra heaven points by chancing upon the hidden angels. It’s as if we put the dollar in the beggars cup the same way we put a quarter in a slot machine—just MAYBE the dial will turn up ($$$--or angel!, angel!, angel!) and we’ll hit the heavenly jackpot—that angel will be waiting at the Pearlies, rip off the beggar costume, yell SURPRISE and tell us what we won…

What a silly view. And I confess to all of you that I’ve thought in those terms. Give the dollar, be hospitable—b/c it MIGHT be a test to pass or fail, win the big money or hear the big buzzer on J-Day. What we fail to see when we look at the verses this way is that WE are meant to be the beneficiaries of a visit with the angels. WE are getting the prize then and there—by the blessing of passing some time with heavenly beings--beings that KNOW the presence of God.

******

Even that day on Gulf Shores, I missed the point. I congratulated myself for being “open” and “reaching out” to this woman, Karen, and the young girl. We spent the evening chatting about our lives—the young girl was actually her best friend’s daughter. The friend was in the military and when she was sent to Iraq, she called Karen and asked, “Are you IN or are you OUT?” Karen said that she was IN and became the guardian of her friend’s daughter. Actually from Colorado, Karen was in the area to check on her father, who was getting old and maybe needed her to move down to take care of him.

After a while the sun set and Karen asked if I was hungry. Still thinking that I was supposed to be JC to her, the Bread of Life verses passed through my head…but I just said that yeah, I could eat. So we went across the street to a Mexican restaurant. During dinner, I congratulated myself on taking this lesson from the Big Guy on being open to others…thinking that the lesson was: You never know when He will place someone in your path to reach out to. I wondered if I should talk to her about JC…but ended up just sharing my Reasons for moving to China.

And maybe that was the lesson—maybe I did bless her or maybe it will help her view of Xianity—but I now think of that experience as a time when I tried to be alone with my own thoughts, and Father brought me a friend to teach me something instead. She was someone whose life seemed always intruded upon—by her friend, by her dad, by her husband whose job brought move after move, etc…and yet she still reached out. She still made new friends with strangers on the beach. She loved. She was IN. And she was a lot of fun to spend time with.

******

As I stay in China and am weekly approached in ways even more awkward than “Take off your pants and get in the ocean with me,” I think that there have maybe been angels along the way offering me special blessings—to rejuvenate my Spirit, to reconnect to Him, to learn a new lesson. And I’m afraid that in times of impatience with China, I’ve rejected them because they invaded my space or asked too much of me. I’ve pushed them away because, by mentally stating that I can’t be an impromptu English tutor to all of Wuhan or that I can’t reach all of China through bus conversations or can't have people over TONIGHT because the apt is just too messy and there's no food in the fridge—I’ve missed the point and made it about MY work to bless them—never assuming that perhaps they are a Gift sent to help me. I think I might be beginning to see that I was brought to China to be given more lessons and taught much more about His Ways than I will end up teaching others. After almost a year here, I have a feeling that I am still much more of a student of Him than a teacher of Him. And I’m thrilled about that.

Because here’s the thing: it was also on a beach that a man walked up to two fishermen and asked them to follow him—to be fishers of men—to take off their pants and get in the ocean. This seems to be the way He works sometimes—inconvenient and awkward, invading our time and space. If they had been too focused on their roles as hosts—they might have brushed him off and not “entertained” his request. But no, they followed. And by that first act of entertaining the request of a weird guy on a beach, they got to spend three years learning from the Son of Man. And then they became our teachers—telling us what He was like, who He was and how to be like Him. I only ask that I too can entertain the requests of that weird man and also be such a learner as they were.