Marcus Redding Passes Notes in Church

Everyone filed back into the auditorium after Wednesday evening classes were over. The services always finished with one of the deacons reading a list of announcements before they had one last song and prayer. Marcus was half paying attention through most of it: a workday on Saturday at the church building to do some spring cleaning, one lady’s cousin was going in for a biopsy on a tumor, one of the teenagers was looking for some help with an Eagle Scout project, a truck from the children’s home would be stopping by this week to pick up winter clothes.

Marcus let his mind drift to the Winter Olympics until he felt Lauren squeeze his hand. He looked over at her. She pointed with her eyes to the front of the auditorium as if to say, “Pay attention.” The deacon was explaining that Evelyn Smith needed a ride to and from a doctor’s appointment on Friday. Marcus looked back at Lauren with a puzzled expression as if to say, “What about it?” Lauren leaned over and whispered, “What are you doing on Friday?” Marcus leaned over and whispered back, “I can’t. I’m looking for a job.”

Lauren grabbed a little pencil from in front of her and rifled through her Bible to find a stray sheet of paper. She scribbled something and passed it to Marcus. It was a scripture reference. One that he knew without looking it up: James 1:27.

The announcements continued. Marcus picked up his own little pencil and wrote his own scripture reference right under Lauren’s: 2 Thessalonians 3:10. She knew that one. So she smiled and wrote a few words under Marcus’s scripture reference, “but you are willing to work.” She underlined the word “you” one time and the word “willing” three times. Marcus sighed. He couldn’t argue with that.

After the last prayer Marcus spoke to the deacon who gave announcements and said he would give Evelyn a ride on Friday. He tried to appear happy, but it was hard.

Marcus went into the church office to get a directory to look up Evelyn’s number. He stepped outside to call her on his cell phone. When Evelyn answered she was coughing and Marcus had to speak loudly and repeat himself three times until she understood who he was and why he was calling. After a few minutes he figured out her appointment was at 11:30 a.m. at the Olympic Plaza. She didn’t know when she’d be done. Marcus was thinking, “Great, right in the middle of the day. This day is lost.”

Marcus got directions to her house. “Don’t be late,” she told him, “I’m never late.” Marcus just said, “Yes, ma’am.” Evelyn went on, “And do you do plumbing? I’ve got a leaky faucet and I don’t want to pay a guy to come out. The last time I called the plumber he was here for 15 minutes and he charged $700. Can you imagine that? Seven…hundred…dollars! I told him what I thought about that. I told him he could…”

Marcus interrupted, “Yes ma’am, I can fix your faucet. I’ll look at it after we get back from your appointment.”

Evelyn wasn’t done, “Now remember, be there at 10:00 so we can get there early. And make sure your car is clean.” She had more to say. All Marcus could say was, “Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” By the end of their conversation Evelyn didn’t sound any happier than at the beginning. And Marcus wasn’t either.

When he finally got off the phone and stepped back inside, Marcus’s dad and Lauren a few others thanked him for volunteering. Lauren squeezed his hand and said, “I’m proud of you.”

Marcus knew he was doing the right thing, but he wondered what he was getting himself into.

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding Waits

“So are my prayers doing any good? I mean, it’s been four months now. The baby is due in June. Here it’s March already.” Marcus heard tires squeal outside and his eyes darted to the window. He sat for a minute looking at the traffic going by on the Loop. Finally he took a deep breath, “It’s not supposed to be this way. Lauren is a rock star at her job and I had a job in a warehouse. I lost that job, now I can’t find anything at all.”

Last Sunday evening Marcus had approached their preacher, John Humble, and said he wanted to sit down and talk with him. So here they were on Tuesday morning. Marcus sat on the couch, work boots laced up, hair cut short, hands in his jacket. John sat across from Marcus in a comfy chair. His Bible was perched on a corner of his desk, a yellow legal pad stuffed in the middle.

“So what do you pray for?” John got to the heart of the matter.

Marcus was terse, almost angry, “I’m praying that God will let me find work so that Lauren can stay home.”

John leaned forward, “That’s a good prayer. It’s in line with God’s will. We know that God will answer prayers according to his will.”

Marcus had heard that before, “Yeah, I know but…”

John interrupted, “Marcus. Listen. ‘this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.’ That’s 1 John 5:14. Do you believe that?” John looked intently at Marcus.

Marcus looked back at him, his eyes betraying his thoughts, “I do believe it…most of the time.” Marcus gave a half smile and said, “I believe, help my unbelief. That’s Mark 9:24. Do you believe that?”

John laughed, “You can quote scripture too!” The humor reduced the tension. John went on, “God will answer your prayer. But here’s the thing: it says “he hears us.” It doesn’t say when he will answer, it doesn’t say how he will answer. But he will. The main thing is what you do in the meantime.”

Marcus asked the obvious question, “What do I do in the meantime?”

John reached for his Bible and took out the legal pad. He tore out a page and handed it to Marcus. It was a list of seven scriptures. “I looked these up for you today. Read one each day this week. Then we’ll talk about them next week. Okay?”

Marcus nodded, “Okay.”

John went on, “Let’s read #6 right now. Here you go.” John handed Marcus his Bible, open to Lamentations 3:24-33. Marcus read it out loud. “What jumps out at you?” John asked.

Marcus knew the scripture. “It says it is good to wait and good to go through hard times.”

John sympathized, “Not what we usually think, huh? And look at verse 25, ‘the LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.’ Every time you pray you are seeking him. It’s what we do while we wait. These scriptures are not about getting answers. There is no formula for getting what we want, but there are principles that show us how to become what God wants us to be.”

Marcus sat back and looked out the window, “And what does God want me to be?”

John settled back in his chair and looked out the same window. He smiled and quietly said, “A waiter.”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding's Snow Day

There was a knock at the door. A single knock. Lauren stirred from her sleep. Another single knock. She fumbled for her cell phone so she could see what time it was. Another knock. Squinting at the cell phone she saw it was 7:42 a.m. Another single knock. “Who in the world would be knocking on their apartment door this early on Saturday morning?” Another knock, but it wasn’t coming from the door. It was the window. But it was a second story window with nothing underneath it. What’s going on? She stumbled in her pajamas to the window in the living room and peeked out of the blinds. The windows were all fogged over. Another knock. Something hit the window! Someone was throwing things at their window!

“Marcus! Come here, I’m scared!” she half-yelled, half-whispered. Where was he? Something else hit the window. She pulled open the blinds and used her pajama sleeves to make a little clear circle. Thwap! Something else hit the window. It was white. It was a snowball.

Snow! Look at the snow! It lined every tree branch! It covered the ground! Must have been six or seven inches deep! Beautiful!

But who was that lunatic down there throwing snowballs at their window? Someone had built two snow people and made two snow angels. Above the two angels, written in the snow was “Marcus and Lauren.” Marcus was the lunatic who woke her up by throwing snowballs at their window. He was motioning for her to come down. She put on some shoes and went out on the porch and told Marcus it was beautiful and thanks for the snow angels but she didn’t want to get cold and wet. He yelled back up at her…yelled, at quarter to eight in the morning, in the middle of a big apartment complex…“Lauren, come on, this hardly ever happens! Come on!” And he just stood and looked at her like, “How can you not come out and play in the snow?”

The sight of him standing there with a crust of snow on his clothes, a ridiculous stocking cap too small for his head, and a big grin on his face was too much for her. She went back in and threw on three layers of clothes, gloves, and a hat. She took the lid off a big plastic storage bin so they could use it as a sled and she went back out on the porch. Marcus had his back turned, making alterations to his snowman, so she scooped up some snow from the edge of the porch and made a snowball. She threw it and it hit the target, right between his shoulder blades. He turned around and looked up. “All right! Come on!”

And they spent the next three hours making more snowmen and more snow angels and sledding down the slope next to their apartment building and then they got into a snowball fight with the neighborhood kids and Marcus chased Lauren and tackled her in the snow (very gently though, she was pregnant you know) and gave her a facewash and they laughed until their ribs hurt and she vowed revenge and then somebody found a sled and they tied it to the back of Marcus’s pickup and he had the kids take turns as he pulled them around the empty church parking lot next door and then the kids moved on to build a snow fort and Marcus and Lauren went for a walk and talked and held gloved hands as they looked at the snow.

They got back to their apartment and stomped the snow off their boots and went inside and peeled off the extra layers of sweaters and jackets. Lauren made hot cocoa. Marcus opened to Ecclesiastes and read a passage out loud…

“Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:9).

He walked over to her in the kitchen and hugged her from behind. “It’s not so vain when I’m with you.”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.

Marcus Redding Uses a Concordance

Marcus was animated. “That’s what God intended men to do. God put Adam to work in the garden. It’s frustrating. I want to work. I’m a good worker. And I want for you to stay home with the kids. That’s the ideal. That’s God’s will. And God says if we ask according to his will then he will answer our prayer, eventually.”

Lauren was realistic. “I can do things from home you know. That Proverbs 31 woman was working all the time. It’s just that all her work revolved around her husband and children. It says, ‘She looks well to the ways of her household.’”

They had this conversation a lot, especially when driving home after services like they were this Sunday evening. “Okay, do me a favor,” Marcus said. “Go to biblegateway.com on your iPhone and do a keyword search for ‘work’ but limit it to Proverbs. Let’s see what it says.”

In about thirty seconds Lauren was tapping through a list of scriptures. She read the relevant results out loud as Marcus was driving…

“Whoever works his land will have plenty of bread, but he who follows worthless pursuits lacks sense.”

(Marcus: “Now I just need some land to work.”)

“From the fruit of his mouth a man is satisfied with good, and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him.”

(Lauren: “I bet someone you know will come through for you.”)

“Whoever is slack in his work is a brother to him who destroys.”

(Marcus: “I’m a good worker. I guess I’m a brother to him who builds.”)

“Do you see a man skillful in his work? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.”

(Marcus: “See! That’s you! The president of TJC came to your office to thank you for your good work!”)

“Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.”

(Lauren…hand on her abdomen…“the house is already being built.”)

She was quiet as they pulled into the parking lot of their apartment complex. He parked and took the keys out of the ignition. Still quiet. He turned and looked at her and she was looking out the window. It was raining. The drops of rain made that sound as they spattered on the window. He looked back outside. They sat this way for a good five minutes. It started to get cold. Finally he turned back to her and held her left hand. He could feel the diamond on her wedding ring poking his fingers. “Lauren, we are seeking God’s kingdom and his righteousness and praying about this. He’ll add everything else.”

Lauren squeezed his hand but she kept looking out the window. “You’re wrong Marcus. He’s not going to add, he’s going to multiply.”

More about Marcus Redding’s journey of faith next week.