Easy and Free

On encountering young men with name tags

At the neighborhood park, just around the bend from the marina and across a vast expanse of green grass that seems to span endlessly for little toddler legs, two of my children and I settled our things on a metal table underneath the shade of a shimmering maple tree. The sun was warm, the breeze kissed with salt air, and laughter from children doing what they do at parks was easy and free.

I had spent part of my morning preparing for this: a welcome date with a dear friend and her little boy. Into my large basket, I packed plates, forks, and sweet little napkins with birdies on them. I included prosciutto wrapped mozzarella sticks, hawthorn-rose kombucha (really, jun, as it’s made with honey and not sugar), and a fresh baked cake of rhubarb that included roses from my garden and mulberries from the local farm. I gently tucked in vanilla creme fraiche for a topping. It was going to be perfect.

And it was. We had a lovely conversation ranging from plans for supper to race relations to friends who were “deconstructing” the faith. We were solemn, we were silly. We took our littles to go wee, and encouraged them as needed.

But all that time, two young men in dark slacks, white shirts, and name tags were hovering nearby, watching us.

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When I was a younger mother, pregnant in our condo with child number four and having put the other three down for naps, a knock at the door happened before I could put up the “do not disturb…we are napping” sign. And, upon opening said door, two young men in dark slacks, white shirts, and name tags greeted me.

I wasn’t opposed to the conversation. In fact, I had a great sorrow and compassion for these young people, for they were laboring two years away from their families, but also serving a works-based faith that had no power whatsoever to save them and set them free. Thankfully, I was already a steady student of the Bible, and the Lord provided me gracious words to share and to challenge them with.

I can’t remember how many times they came back (welcomed) to continue the conversation. But I do remember the point when it seemed to be, well, pointless.

“Look,” I said. “Neither one of us is convinced. However, you must know that if you desire to convince someone who is a blood-bought sinner like me with so great a savior as the One I know and love, that what I know to be true is somehow wrong…you need to first understand exactly what it is that I believe. And you don’t. You’ve shown that many, many times. Therefore, I think you need to become a student of what Christians like me really believe if you hope to have us abandon the faith we have for something we understand to be falsehood.”

And with that, I gave them a copy of John Stott’s Basic Christianity. Which they said they were interested in reading. And then I said goodbye, and prayed like crazy that God would reveal Himself to them through that book. Because I knew without God’s divine summons, they, like me, would be hopelessly and eternally lost.

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The young men at the park were walking slowly towards us as I was slicing up the cake and serving it. I felt a rising indignation. I’m sure I frowned. They were writing something on a white board, and then approached our little band of merry eaters.

“Excuse us, but would you mind telling us what you’re grateful for?” And with that, he flipped the board and showed us GRATEFUL on the middle of it.

I wasn’t feeling at all grateful. Strike one. And I spoke first. Strike two.

“Well,” I started, “I’m grateful for my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and I do hope that someday you will know Him. Have a good day”. At least, I hope I ended that with “have a good day” but I can’t recall.

And at that, they shuffled off, leaving me to my misery.

I didn’t engage.

I didn’t share the gospel.

I didn’t want to have a conversation.

I just wanted to have my cake and eat it, too. Uninterrupted. With friends.

I apologized to my friend, for my rudeness. She was kind and tried to tell me that there was a time and place for everything, and that included a time to not even give a greeting to such a heretic (2 John 1:10).

Perhaps. But I wonder if Jesus would have just sliced them up some cake and had a conversation. It’s hard to not cast pearls before swine when you don’t even know how swiney a person is. I guess the uniform in this case gave it away. But I dunno.

We finished up our play date with some sobriety, and I later repented before the Lord for my quick indignation. I know He is leading me, and because of Him, even so in the aftermath, my own laughter can be easy and free in the midst of such an ongoing battle against the devil, the world, and my own flesh. It is good to be free, indeed.

There’s nothing more important than to be grounded in the Word! Below is a collection of Bible studies I did while mothering small children. You, too, can be a student of the Bible.