Chapter 29: Tom II
“What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?” 1 Corinthians 4:21
The walls and floors of the hotel were surprisingly soundproof, and Luke slept well and woke early. He felt a little smug and contented as he walked upon the beach, enjoying a sacred morning under blue-gentle skies--the cool dawn, sandy shores, a beautiful day made by God’s own hand, and a certain feeling that something important would happen on it! Most of the other sailors were still sleeping off their drunk, and Luke congratulated himself upon making the wiser choice.
His satisfaction was short-lived, however, for along came a strange figure to waylay him. Duster coat instead of an apron, hightops, baseball cap instead of a chef’s hat. The face was familiar but it took Luke a little while to make the connection, so far away from where he had seen him last-- in a Diner in the peaceful town of Chair. “Tom the Prophet!” Luke exclaimed at long last. “What are you doing here?”
Luke was startled by the answer: “God told me to come here and give you a kick in the butt.”
“God said that?”
“I paraphrase.”
“How did you get here?” Luke wanted to know. Their running into each other in such a remote spot seemed improbable.
“Same as you: the wind blew me here.”
“And what made you come?” Luke asked again, trying to discover just how much liberty Tom had taken in his paraphrase.
“Visions and dreams,” Tom said confidently. “I go where God sends me, now. I have you to thank for that, actually. Your wisecracks about my cooking made me reconsider what I was doing there. A part-time prophet and a full-time short order cook? Preposterous. I don’t want to be a part-time anything. God calls us to serve Him all the time.”
“What about paying your bills and stuff?” Luke recalled that Tom had given that as his reason for opening the Diner in the first place.
“I have no more bills. I sold the Diner, that took away most of my expenses! I left my home, and that took care of the rest...”
Luke pantomimed the spoon going to the mouth, dupdupdupdupdup. “What about eats?”
Tom smiled. “God sends me to talk to nice people who will buy me breakfast.” Luke took the hint, and took the prophet’s arm to steer him towards the hotel restaurant, for orange juice, toast, and bacon. Luke picked up the conversation as soon as they had ordered. “So these visions, these dreams, they told you to come kick my butt.” Luke looked Tom the Prophet over, pretending to size him up to judge whether he actually could handle that assignment. Then Tom spoke, with more authority than he had shown on their first meeting, and Luke started to suspect that maybe he could.
“I was told to come here and speak to a Hun. I assumed it would be you. But then I got here and I met a rough customer with brass knuckles, stringy hair and a sweat-stained shirt.”
“That would be my dad,” Luke admitted.
“So, we talked. He seemed interested to learn what I had to say. He had only known war, so I told him about peace. He believed in self-reliance, so I invited him to rely instead on Christ. He was a man of courage, so I showed him the fear of God. He had never felt much love, so I taught him about the Love surpassing all loves.”
“You guys had a busy day,” Luke interjected.
Tom shrugged. “He said he wasn’t doing anything important until sunset. Still, he listened earnestly, not like he was just filling time. He had some sad things in his past I could see he wanted to change.”
“So you changed him then?” Luke was anxious to learn.
“I did my part. And sent him back on his way. After he bought me seconds,” Tom hinted again, and Luke laughed and summoned the waiter, adding pancakes and omelets to their order. “I thought that was the end of it. Two Huns healed. Coz when it wasn’t you waiting for me, I rejoiced, thinking you must still be safely on your way. But the Spirit told me to stay. And here you are. Needless to say, I’m a little disappointed to see you.”
Luke took a quick inventory, and asked, a little puzzled, “I haven’t been doing that badly. Have I? I’ve met some people, learned some things. Even said a couple prayers.” (Proud of himself.)
“Is that enough?”
Luke hated when people asked questions like that, the ones that made you doubt yourself, the ones that made you think. He tried to play back with the same game: “Isn’t it?”
But Luke was overmatched. Answered Tom, “If it was, would I be here? Would you?”Luke blushed at that challenge, remembering it had been his hope to ‘get all holied up and be home by football season.’ They hadn’t paid too much attention to the calendar while at sea, and it was hard to even tell the seasons now that they had been sailing through the tropics, but Luke was sure it must be at least several weeks into the season.102
Tom questioned him again: “Have you even obeyed the sign I told you to watch for the first time?”
Luke perked up, “Oh yeah. Thanks! Saved my life. There was a fast bus; the Yield sign was a good idea.”
Tom rebuked him sharply, giving Luke a shiver with his warning. (Later on, Luke would have dreams about it that shivered him even more.) “Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”
Luke could have kicked himself. He should have known the sign would mean ‘Yield to God.’ The guy’s a prophet after all, he chided himself. He recalled that, to his credit, he had put a similar-sounding element on his List of Things to Do: ‘#3: Give whole life to God’. Then he realized that, to his shame, he still hadn’t done it yet. He hadn’t even read his Bible much since coming to sea, despite his promise to the Man of God, and to himself, to read it daily. He blamed this partly on the motion sickness--he hadn’t wanted that to return! Then there had been the midnight sun--so technically that was all one day! And then more recently, euchre was just so much fun! True, he was getting into bad habits, despite Bert’s bad example regarding just that. “But how can playing euchre be a sin?” he asked defensively, before Tom even accused him.
“By itself, it’s not. But if you play it when you should be finishing your search, then it becomes a barrier between you and God. The less often you seek God’s face, the less likely you are to see it. If anything else becomes your top priority, ahead of serving God, then it becomes a form of false god for you. Idolatry and rebellion, now those are sins! Taking God for granted isn’t very nice either.”
Having received Electric Man’s card the day before, Luke thought of him now, and came up with another defense. “My friend Electric Man once said: ‘I’ve lived part of my life, and I’m part way towards knowing God’.”
Tom asked if Electric Man had lived alone. Luke acknowledged that he had. “Because in a way, that’s a selfish attitude: If you take your whole life finding out about God, when and whom will you teach? Are we called merely to believe, or to magnify His name?”
But Luke was patient; maybe too much so for Tom’s taste. “I should learn before I teach. I have been learning. I’m closer than I was. In time, it will happen.”
“How much time?” Tom asked, dissatisfied. Luke couldn’t answer that either. Tom continued to correct him, “You could be dead tomorrow.” A chill ran up Luke’s spine. He hoped that wasn’t why the Prophet had come to speak with him today! But he had no way of knowing, as Tom continued to point out. “There is a temptation (Do not give into it!) to think that there is always plenty of time. To assume that if Jesus has taken this long to return, surely there will be centuries more. How futile that thinking is! For we all meet God in our lifetime. Each one of us! In every generation! When we pass on, we will face Him. Are you ready?” Luke hung his head and hated to have to answer. So Tom went on. “How brief life is, and how unpredictable! How delicate, and how precious!”
Luke looked up with a start, hearing the word he had ascribed to June the Jun
e Bug, and remembering her sudden end. Nervously, he asked, “But would God allow some tragedy to occur before I had finished? That seems kind of unfair. And pointless.”
“We have this example: that God gives men space to repent of our deeds. But how much time does that take?” Luke heard Bridgette’s gentler voice answering in his head, although perhaps that had been a warning too: ‘One Day, or One Night’. “If you take too much time, maybe you need to examine yourself and discover how serious you are about it. Because you do have some control over how long it takes...”
“I can only move as fast as the ship moves,” Luke interrupted, thinking it wasn’t all his fault about the long trip. If he had come out to sea to find something, didn’t he have to wait until they came to the place where he would find it?
Apparently not... “You can move as fast as your spirit is willing to move,” Tom corrected him. “You could have been talking more with the believers on your vessel. Praying with them. You could have been reading your Gospel to hear more about God’s miracles. You could have been asking God Himself to draw you, and listening for His voice. And you’ve been doing what instead? Playing euchre?” Tom seemed unimpressed. “Here is a verse I like, one of my own personal favorites, to speed you on your course: ‘And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.’ That one ought to apply to you I think,” Tom judged, guessing at Luke’s rowdy Hun heritage. “What do you think? Better that one than this: ‘He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.’”
Yes, Luke preferred the hope of heaven to the fear of destruction; eternity sounded better than oblivion. He also liked the cool-guy resolve in the catch-phrase ‘Take it by force!’, but he wondered, “Can I really take it by force though? Jenny made it clear that grace means that God gives, we don’t take.”
“Ah, but He’ll respect the single-mindedness though, the sincere desire for heaven. Whom did Christ choose as disciples? Fishermen who left their nets, left their homes, left their families, left everything, to follow Him. Sincere and in earnest. Give your whole life likewise.”
Having thought of his earlier list, Luke now seized on his explanation from the time, and offered it as an excuse: “How can I give my whole life to God? I’ve only got but one life. And I’m busy a-usin’ it me own self!” As soon as he had said it, Luke realized how weak and inappropriate it sounded. Wisecracks to a serious subject, selfishness instead of service. It had sounded good enough to fool himself with it back then, but he immediately knew it wouldn’t cut it with the present tougher audience.
Tom was at best, unfazed. He may even have grown a little vexed. “So maybe that’s your problem. What are you so busy using it for, exactly?” Luke paused, without a ready answer. Tom finished, “So give it to God, then, and let Him use it for the glory of His kingdom! What could be better?” Luke couldn’t answer that either, but he looked a little skeptical nonetheless. Tom reassured him, “God is good! You can trust Him with it! How does Paul describe the believers? ‘As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.’”
Luke perked up, recognizing a familiar attitude. He told Tom the Prophet about Rick the Baffin Islander, the Laughing One, and then Tito, all making the most of small blessings, all willing to get by with whatever God chose to give them.
“See? God gives us what we need! You needed to learn that lesson...”
“Three times?”
“If that’s how many it takes. I can only assume God wants you to be clear on that point. So that you can be fearless about giving up everything for His sake! Then He can put you where He needs you to be, with no obstacles, no barriers, no divided loyalties.”
“But it will be a good place?”
“Trust and see,” Tom promised.
Luke smiled, feeling better, and ventured a jest. “And then I can play euchre?”
This time Tom laughed, thought of his own much-missed golf course membership and allowed a Perhaps-a-little. Luke paid for their breakfast, and Tom walked Luke back out to the beach. By now some of the other sailors were up, and had even begun to load supplies onto the ship. One of them motioned for Luke to come lend a hand. Luke held up an index finger, ‘one moment’. There was still more he wanted to ask Tom the Prophet, while he had him handy. He guessed that if Tom had to come and meet with him a third time, he might start to get cranky!
“Why did I have to come out to sea at all?” Luke wondered, seeking reassurance, clear direction for the rest of his journey. “I didn’t mean to backslide or be unfaithful. But maybe this whole part of the journey was unnecessary, a mistake. I almost had what I wanted back in the Garden, almost made the connection. Why couldn’t I just have stayed there and finished up?” As soon as he had asked it, he thought about Jenny, and realized he would never have met her if he had. But then again, he had left her too, still seeking something greater... So he let the question stand.
“Sometimes it feels like a maze, some steps backwards, some dead ends,” Tom supplied. Luke nodded, that was it exactly. “Only because we do not see as God sees!” Tom explained. “Even steps backward can be steps towards God, as long as you don’t lose faith. Because sometimes He is ahead of us, lighting our way, and sometimes he is behind us, guarding our back.” Tom nodded, pleased, remembering such a time. “And sometimes it’s better for us to suffer some little failures, even to break faith, so we can learn from it, repent of it, and renew our commitments. Like Peter denying Christ, then weeping bitterly. He was a stronger servant afterwards, wasn’t he? Probably told himself ‘I’ll never do that again!’. And you--You forgot what I told you the first time, but now that I’ve come to warn you again, I think you’ll remember.”
Still thinking of his friends to the west, Luke sighed. “Maybe God is always close to us. But He sure feels far away.”
Tom surprised Luke by saying something similar to what Bert had told him, after leaving Jenny. “Don’t trust your feelings. Trust in God! Sometimes we need to go far away--far from home, beyond our comfort zone, away from distractions, and to feel totally helpless and alone, to make us look to God. ‘When I am weak, then am I strong’. Because all you really have left to do is to Yield. Submit. Surrender. Give up your life to God, so he can give you back the life He wants you to have! But that’s not an easy step, is it?”
“Huns never surrender,” Luke asserted, no longer sure whether this was their triumph, or their curse.
“So ‘take it by force’ then, with passion and effort and will. Do one, or do the other. Or do both, more likely--try to take it by force, and battle until you are weary, and then give up and accept God’s good grace, God’s perfect will, Christ’s redeeming blood. But get to it! Don’t wait! Don’t sit around being lukewarm any more,” Tom enjoined.
Seeing that the tables were reversed, and he instead of Bert was the one being reprimanded with that word, Luke took a page out of Bert’s playbook for his answer. He felt his forehead, and agreed, “I’m still a little cool from the morning, but I usually heat up as the sun gets higher.”
“See to it then,” Tom commanded, then followed it up with a handshake, a promise, and a challenge. “My prayers will be with you. Will yours?”
Luke didn’t answer that one right away either, but this time Tom didn’t bail him out. He was done talking, and Luke had to go help load the ship, so he had to say something: couldn’t just walk away without answering, that would be rude. So finally he steeled himself and said, “Yes.”
Tom nodded approval, and waved as Luke hurried to go help his shipmates. When Luke looked for him again a moment later, he was gone.
Luke did his work quietly, quickly, efficiently, and once the ship was loaded and ready to go, Luke found a peaceful moment to say a prayer. He didn’t quite know what to say, but turning the pages of his Bible he found a Psalm that seemed to fit the circumstances: “Create in me
a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence...” Luke wasn’t quite sure if he qualified for the next part, so he stopped reading there, and added his own thoughts afterwards: “God, thank you for sending me your servant Tom. Let his prophecies come true. I want to be the one with the desire to battle to get into heaven, and the one with the humility to surrender. Please draw me, lead me, and use the rest of this journey to teach me to do just that.” Then Luke smiled: God felt less far away already.