EXPERIENCE OF BETH MOORE
For those of you who do not know Beth Moore, she is an outstanding Bible teacher, and writer of Bible studies. She has two grown daughters, a
grandson, and a recent granddaughter. She happens to be from the south, and refers to her husband as Keith the barbarian...he lives to hunt.
She is as crazy as the day is long.....she is my favorite ever, she is the only woman I know that demonstrates how to comb her hair with a fork on
camera!!
This is one of her experiences:
April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville , waiting to board the plane,
I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing.
Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons, not the least
of which is your ego. I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a
strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, this older man was skin and
bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least sixty
pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders
looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like
tangled masses of veins and bones.
The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung
well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were
long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.
I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face.
As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself
wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that
he was dead.
So this man in the airport... An impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us
somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being
concerned about a thin slice of humanity served up on a wheelchair only a
few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more
overwhelmed with a feeling for him.
I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've
learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to
my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be
embarrassing.
I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my
spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. 'Oh, no, God, please, no.'
I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into
heaven And said, 'Don't make me witness to this man. Not right
here and now. Please I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't
make me get up here and witness to this man in front of the is gawking
audience. Please, Lord!'
There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, 'Please don't
make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane.'
Then I heard it.... ' I want you to brush his hair.'
The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts
spun like a top. Brush his hair? No brainer. I looked straight back up at
the ceiling and said,
'God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to
this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness
to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a
mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man..'
I would much rather witness to him than brush his hair!!! Surely I knew
better than God on this one!
Again, as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write
thi s s tatement across the wall of my mind. 'That is not what I said, Beth. I
don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.'
I looked up at God and quipped, 'I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my
suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a
hairbrush?' Thinking...so there!!
God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him
as these thoughts came to me from God's word: 'I will thoroughly furnish you
unto all good works ...' (2 Timothy 3:17)
I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as
I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I
knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, 'Sir, may
I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'
He looked back at me and said, 'What did you say?'
'May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'
To which he responded at volume ten, 'Little lady, if you expect me to
hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that.'
At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, 'SIR, MAY I HAVE THE
PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?' At which point every eye in the place
darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar
than old Mr. Long Locks.
My face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look
up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, 'If you really want to.'
Want to??? Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't
seem interested in my personal preference right about then.
He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, 'Yes, sir, I would
be pleased....... but I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush.'
'I have one in my bag,' he responded (yelling of course).
I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and
knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was
doing.
I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly
clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but must
admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two
little girls. Like I would have done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a
condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering
to take my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me as I started
brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There
was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and
I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this
sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in
my entire life.
I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - I felt a portion
of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while
like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while.
The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's.
His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's..
I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him.
I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knee and said, 'Sir, do you
know my Jesus?'
He said, 'Yes, I do.' Well, of course he does, I thought.....
He explained, 'I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry
me until I got to know the Savior.'
He said, 'You see, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart
surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking
to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride. I asked God to help her
overlook my unkempt appearance'.
Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when
we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was
one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only
He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it.
Our time came to board....... we were not on the same plane. I was deeply
ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have
accompanied him on to his aircraft.
I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the
flight attendant returned from the corridor, tear s s treaming down her
cheeks. She said, 'That old man's sitting on the plane, just sobbing.....
Why did you do that? What made you brush his hair?'
I said, 'Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!'
And we got to share. I learned something about God that day. He knows if
you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place, or it is
time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're
hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a
wave of temptation.
Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed..
He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!
I got on my own flight, sobs choking my own throat, wondering how many
opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way ...... all
because I didn't want people to think I wa s s trange.
God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.
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