For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel

--From the book of Ezra

Chapter 3: Response

I left Fellowship Downtown smiling at the bizarre conversation featuring Don. I loved Fellowship Church because of that. I mean where else would the weirdest people feel comfortable? I pulled into café Brazil, waved at my waitress, Seema. She nodded as I went to a two-top in corner.

She brought me a fruit plate and smiled and went to the other customers. There was a special feeling about being a regular—a sense of comfort from being known. I pulled out my Greek homework and started to get to the parsing of verbs that made my eyes roll into the back of my head.

I pulled the laptop out and it instantly started downloading email.

I saw a message from Don and as I read it, I laughed out loud. Who was this guy? I read the last few lines of the email over again and continued laughing. A couple sitting next to me gave me an evil eye and I realized I might have been just a little loud. I notice Seema smiling at me and I smiled back.

I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO LISTENING TO YOUR OPINIONS, IF YOU’RE NOT REAL WITH ME, YOU WILL LOSE ANY RESPECT YOU MAY HAVE RECEIVED. I know I sound like an ass, but this Christian thing is affecting me and I’m cautious as to what I put into my mind.

Questions started popping into my head. I couldn’t stop them. I wanted to return his email, but right now I had too much work to do. If I got into an email exchange now I might never return to reality. I quickly prayed that God would work things out with Don and give me the words to say and the right attitude about serving this character. I knew God was working in him. It had to be only a matter of time until God got his way in Don’s life. It was hard, but I disconnected from the internet and forced myself to focus on this Greek.

Dr. Hoehner, my Romans professor, was killing me. I mean the guy was brilliant and had set a standard way above us average folk as far as what he expected from us. I had learned back at West Point to quit whining when something got hard. I figured if it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be Dallas Seminary. I signed up for the best, and I was definitely getting it. I also had a quiz that I wasn’t looking forward to the following day and the New Testament department was more like the Grinch than Santa when it came to grades.

“Do you want more coffee, Chris?” Seema asked.

“Yeah, it’s gonna be a long night.”