What "John" Did

I came across this in the LICC magazine recently and I share it here with permission.

It looks like something bad is about to happen. How does the disciple respond? Mark Greene meets a man with bottle and spirit…

‘John’ works for a drinks company – not a soft drinks company, but a hard drinks company. He’s a Christian, and convinced that God called him into the job. One day, ‘John’ finds himself on a business trip in the Far East. One of the ways that business is done in the Far East is to go out drinking together at the end of the day. John has rules about this. He goes with the team and he doesn’t get drunk. Now, in the Far East, the kinds of places executives go drinking almost always feature beautiful hostesses. Some are there to serve drinks, and some offer rather more. John has rules about the kinds of places he goes to. And he sticks to them.

One evening, his team is out with some suppliers and John realises that one of his colleagues has taken a real shine to one of the hostesses who is particularly luminous. As the evening proceeds John grows more and more concerned that his colleague, a married man, will proposition her. But what can he do? The place is buzzing, there are suppliers and colleagues and the hostesses… but his heart ached and he fervently prays: ‘Lord’.

A little later, John finds himself in the facilities. By coincidence, perhaps, his colleague is the only other person there. So, as they are facilitating, John turns to him and says: ‘Are you having a good evening? I can see you have some decisions ahead of you. As your friend, I would encourage you to make sure that the decisions you make tonight are the same as those you’d make tomorrow.’

Now, that is some sentence. And although John is a bright, articulate man, he’s in no doubt that it came from the Spirit (Mark 13:11).

Ten minutes later the colleague left the club with the hostess in tow. John’s heart ached more. A little later, John left the club and went back to his hotel room and got down on his knees by his bed and prayed and prayed. A couple of days later it became clear that his colleague had in fact propositioned the girl…

However, she had told John’s colleague that she wasn’t that kind of hostess, but asked if he’d be interested in a long term relationship. He then stayed up until 3.00am talking to her, much of it about her sorrow because her boyfriend had left her.

Now there’s a thing. The man who wanted to use this woman as a prostitute becomes her pastor. And maybe he learned more about how wrong his impulse to sleep with her was by having propositioned her than if he had simply left the bar at 11.30 pm. He learned that a hostess in a bar can have a life beyond that bar, that a hostess in a bar could be a woman with a heart that’s tender, a heart that can be broken, a woman with hopes and dreams for her own life…

But what about John?

Now there’s someone who loves their colleague/neighbour as a whole human being. And is confident that God’s ways are good for other people, and cares enough to intervene. There’s someone who believes in prayer, who knows how to call out to God in the maelstrom just as Jehoshaphat did in the middle of the battle (I kings 22:31-33) when there is nothing he can do himself. There’s someone who is confident in God to act – even if he can’t think how. There’s someone who also knows how to pray in the quiet place. There’s someone who asked others to pray for that trip before he went, someone who has involved the people of God in a frontline of mission that they themselves will probably never be in.

Bottle, spirit, prayer and the support of God’s people – it’s a mighty potent cocktail.