Marti Fisher's Account of Bill Hybels' "Just Walk Across the Room"
Recently, Dale and I went to the Campus Crusade for Christ headquarters in Orlando for a Global Leadership Development Team conference. While we were there, "by chance" I found a book that I had wanted to read for some time. The title was intriguing and each night I couldn't wait to read it before going to bed. The book? "Just Walk Across the Room," by Bill Hybels. One quote that I was already familiar with talked about starting your day with a prayer of availability to the Lord. That involved talking to someone about the Lord, encouraging them or not saying anything at all. It was all about letting the Holy Spirit lead and learning to hear His voice, then obeying what He said.
I was so nurtured by the stories and honesty of this pastor. He prayed and God answered. I loved to see how the Lord worked through him. I was convicted! I realized that I had slipped into apathy about sharing my faith here in America. I was busy. I had things to do. There was always a reason not to take the time to share the most powerful truth in the world. However, if I truly wanted to follow Jesus (and I did), I realized it would only take seconds to pray the prayer of availability.
On the flight back to California, I was seated next to a man with a shaved head. His Bose earphones let me know that he was more interested in his music than in talking. "O Lord," I prayed, "I am willing to talk to this man about spiritual things but, if I am supposed to speak, let him be the one to initiate." No sooner had I prayed than the man went to the bathroom, returned, sat down without his headphones, and said, "Is that the Bible you have been reading?" (Wow! That was a quick answer.) I told him that it was indeed. He said that he had stopped going to church at age 12 when the pastor used the sermon time to try to get money for the parking lot. I agreed that this wasn't the time for talking about the parking lot but I said that we were all hypocrites in need of help. I was able to share some things from the Word and give him my own God story of coming to Christ at age 12. Before we deplaned, I told him that Jesus loved him and gave him a copy of the Four Spiritual Laws.
Here are two excerpts from Mr. Hybels' inviting book that I believe you'll appreciate as much as I did.
Roughly, that's the distance you travel sunrise to sunset, each and every day of your life. It adds up to about 115,000 miles in a lifetime — or more than four times around this big blue planet of ours.
With that said, just one question: Are you using your steps wisely?
Assume the average distance across most rooms is 20 feet — about 10 steps. The question I hope to answer is this: What if 10 steps — just one one-thousandth of your daily average — could actually impact eternity?
Several years ago, I was co piloting a private aircraft that was headed back to Chicago from the West Coast. Piloting the plane was a gentleman I'd flown with several times before. On each occasion, once we reached cruising altitude and switched on the autopilot, we'd enjoy open conversations about any number of issues.
On that particular night, our dialogue was generally about the task at hand. We discussed flight patterns and weather conditions and altitude assessments, mostly prompted by air traffic controllers on the ground who were feeding updates to us. But with about 90 minutes left in the flight, I silently pleaded for God's intervention. Help me direct things to more substantive issues.
After the next intercom update, I ventured into the Zone of the Unknown and asked my pilot friend if he would ever make a flight like this without listening to air traffic control. Would he ever consider — even for a moment — silencing the radio and directing the flight alone?
He didn't waste any time answering. "Of course not!" he laughed. "It'd be crazy — I need all the information and assistance I can get my hands on . . . especially in dicey weather."
I prayed for a boost of confidence and then said, "If you can believe it, some people fly through their entire life with the radio to heaven turned off. They receive zero input from God. They get no guidance, no wisdom, and no counsel. A lot of times, they fly blindly into bad weather and end up crashing and burning. You'd be surprised how many people do that."
Silence crept through the cockpit as I waited and prayed.
A few seconds later, his voice now sobered, he said, "I guess that would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it?"
I know that the seeds that were sown on my flight and Bill's will bear fruit in God's time. I see how the Lord longs to have us share His Word and longs for all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Pray for Tom and pick up a copy of "Just Walk Across the Room"!
The Lord . . . is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).