The Man Who Never Had the Right Words

Colin had been a Christian for thirty seven years and still dreaded the moment somebody said, "Would anyone like to share?"

He could cope with most other parts of church life. He could stack chairs, arrive early, remember names, fix the temperamental latch on the hall door and make tea strong enough to restore a tired deacon to active service. None of that worried him. But when a Bible study leader looked around the room and invited comments, Colin suddenly became fascinated by whatever was printed at the bottom of the page.

It was not that he had nothing to say. He often had plenty to say on the drive home. He simply thought of it twenty minutes too late.

His home group did not help. They were kind people, which almost made matters worse because Colin could not even blame them. Rachel seemed able to pray in complete paragraphs. David could explain a difficult passage without once saying, "You know what I mean." Miriam had a memory for Scripture that Colin regarded as supernatural and slightly unfair.

Then there was Colin.

He would listen carefully, nod at appropriate places and occasionally contribute something so brief that it sounded as though he had been charged by the word.

"I think we need to trust the Lord," he said one evening after twelve minutes of discussion about suffering.

Everyone agreed.

Colin went home wishing he had said more.

His wife Elaine noticed. She had been noticing for years.

"You did the face again," she said as they drove home.

"What face?"

"The one where everybody else is talking and you look as though you have accidentally wandered into a university lecture on molecular chemistry."

"I do not look like that."

"You do. You also fold your study notes in half when you are nervous."

Colin looked down. The notes in his lap were folded neatly in half.

"That proves nothing."

Elaine smiled. "You think being useful to God means sounding impressive."

"I do not."

"Good. Then we have solved it."

He knew better than to argue with a woman who had been married to him for thirty four years and had developed an alarming ability to finish his thoughts before he had properly started them.

Still, the feeling remained.

Colin had spent most of his working life in a distribution warehouse. He had supervised people, solved practical problems and learned how to keep a shift moving when two forklifts were down and half the staff had rung in sick. He was not timid. He was not unintelligent. But in church he often felt that the people who mattered most were the people who could speak well.

The preacher spoke. The Bible study leader spoke. The prayer meeting had several people who seemed able to pray for five minutes without repeating themselves. Colin admired them all.

He also quietly assumed that whatever gift God had given him must be a lesser one.

The thought came to the surface one Sunday when the sermon was from 1 Corinthians 12.

The pastor spoke about one body and many members. He talked about eyes and hands, feet and ears. He reminded the congregation that difference was not a defect in the body of Christ. It was part of the design.

Colin listened, agreed and then immediately thought about how much better it would be if he could explain the passage like the pastor had.

Old habits can survive a very good sermon.

Three nights later the home group met at David and Miriam's house. There were eleven of them that evening including a young man named Luke who had started attending church only a few months earlier.

Luke was in his early thirties, worked as a mechanic and usually sat quietly near the end of the lounge. Colin liked him. Perhaps because Luke also seemed to prefer listening before speaking.

The study was on assurance. David asked a question about what Christians should do when they did not feel close to God.

Rachel spoke first. She talked about the promises of Scripture. Miriam mentioned the importance of prayer and fellowship. David added something about faith resting on the finished work of Christ rather than on changing emotions.

They were good answers.

Luke kept looking at the floor.

After a while he said, "What if you keep doing all that and still feel nothing?"

The room became quieter.

Luke rubbed his hands together. "I mean, I read the Bible. I pray, badly. I come here. Some Sundays everyone else seems certain and I am sitting there wondering whether I am pretending."

Colin looked at him.

He knew that feeling, though not in exactly the same form. He knew what it was to sit among confident people and conclude that their confidence proved something about your own lack.

Someone began answering Luke. The answer was careful and true. Colin listened but found himself thinking about a winter morning many years earlier.

He had been thirty two then. His father had just died. Colin had gone to church because that was what he did on Sundays and had spent the entire service feeling absolutely nothing. No comfort. No peace. No strong sense of God's presence.

Afterwards an older man named Frank had found him near the door. Frank did not offer an explanation for grief. He simply put a hand on Colin's shoulder and said, "Keep coming back to Christ, son. Feelings are weather. He is the ground."

Colin had remembered the sentence for more than thirty years.

Now Luke was still looking at the floor.

Colin's heart began beating faster, which annoyed him because he was sixty three years old and should not have been frightened of speaking in a lounge room.

He waited for a gap.

Then he said, "Luke, can I tell you something that happened to me?"

Luke looked up. "Sure."

Colin told him about his father. He told him about the Sunday when faith had felt flat and mechanical. He told him about Frank at the church door.

Then Colin said, "I have had plenty of days when I did not feel much. Sometimes I thought stronger Christians must live differently. But Christ has been more faithful than my feelings. I have learned not to measure Him by what is happening inside me on a particular Tuesday."

Nobody interrupted.

Colin continued. "I still read the Bible on days when it feels alive and on days when it feels like I am reading through fog. I still pray even when the prayer is clumsy. I keep coming back because the important thing is not how firmly I am holding Christ every minute. The important thing is that He is faithful."

He stopped.

There were probably better ways to say it. Colin could think of three already.

Luke nodded slowly.

"That helps," he said.

Colin blinked. "Good."

David smiled. "Thank you, Colin."

The group moved on but Colin barely heard the next question.

On the drive home Elaine waited almost five full minutes before saying anything, which Colin recognised as an act of heroic restraint.

"Do not," he said.

"I have not said a word."

"You are about to."

"I was only going to ask whether molecular chemistry went well tonight."

Colin laughed. "Very funny."

Then he became quiet.

"I did not plan any of that."

"I know."

"I am not even sure it made sense."

"It made sense to Luke."

They drove another kilometre before Elaine added, "Perhaps God did not make you Rachel or David because the church already has Rachel and David."

Colin looked through the windscreen.

That sentence lodged somewhere deep.

The following Sunday Luke found him after the service.

"I wanted to thank you for the other night," he said.

Colin felt immediately uncomfortable. "You do not need to."

"I do. Everyone gave me good answers. But you told me you had felt it too. I needed that."

Colin nodded.

Luke hesitated. "Would you mind if I rang you sometime?"

"Of course not."

"I am not asking you to become my counsellor or anything."

"Good. I charge too much."

Luke grinned. "I just think it would help to talk sometimes."

"Then ring."

That was how it began.

There was nothing dramatic about it. Luke rang occasionally. Sometimes they talked for ten minutes. Sometimes they met for coffee. Colin rarely had brilliant answers. Often he said, "I do not know." More than once he went home and looked up a passage because Luke had asked something he could not answer.

But Colin listened.

He did not rush silence. He did not treat doubt as disloyalty. He did not need Luke to become impressive. He simply kept pointing him back to Christ.

Months later the home group held a small dinner. Somebody had the unfortunate idea that each person should say one thing they appreciated about another member of the group.

Colin prepared himself for embarrassment.

When it was Luke's turn he looked across the table.

"Colin," he said, "you make it safe to be unfinished."

The room went quiet.

Colin stared at him.

Luke shrugged. "You never make me feel stupid for not knowing something. You do not pretend you have every answer. You just keep bringing me back to Jesus."

Colin looked down at his plate because his eyes had suddenly become unreliable.

Later that night he thought again about 1 Corinthians 12.

One body. Many members.

For years Colin had looked at other Christians and measured himself by the gifts he did not have. He had mistaken difference for deficiency.

He could not preach like David. He could not pray like Rachel. He could not remember references like Miriam.

But he could listen. He could stay. He could speak plainly. He could admit when he did not know. He could tell the truth about Christ without pretending the Christian life was easier than it was.

Those things had seemed small because they were his.

Perhaps that was part of the problem.

We often notice other people's gifts because we experience them from the outside. Our own can feel ordinary because we have carried them for years.

Colin never became the most articulate person in the room.

He stopped trying to.

And somewhere along the way he discovered that the body of Christ did not need another copy of somebody else.

It needed faithful members.

Including him.