ECOUNTER WITH A STRANGER

One fateful evening, I was sitted outside the gate to our home waiting impatiently for someone to open. After several hours of knocking, all my frustrations began to ebb away. As if subdued to the prospect of staying outside for the rest of the evening, I decided to sit on a large octane stone. I looked around and met the dog eyes of a stranger seemingly in his mid twenties. His agrarian and humble nature is the first thing I noticed. He was wearing an over-sized shirt that swayed in the breeze. He began to approach me;

 “He is an evangelist.” I thought to myself.

Had I guessed him right? Yes, he was indeed an evangelist. I was pleased at my prejudice but the prospect of being preached to felt like a sharp stab in my liver. We shook hands and shared pleasantries. I too managed to forge a plastic smile to let him know that I was comfortable with his motive. My heart was heavy with a knot I could not understand. I was being taken, taken in God’s paradise. People passed by us as if we were enemies, children of the Most High who should have nothing to do with them. Ironically, I felt more inclined to the passersby who seemed to pity me.

The young man brought me to his attention with a sharp toned voice;

“Do you know God’s name? Have you ever had preachers in your churches emphasize it? What is his name?”

This barrage of questions took me aback.

“His name is Jehovah”. I replied with certain iciness at his very light questions. His boldness upset me. To ask me if I knew God’s name! He must have thought I was a pagan, a typical one in fact.

Immediately, we got into the thick and thin of the true religion, the history of the church, Jesus Christ, baptism all the way to the Roman Empire where there was a man called Emperor Constantine. It was like rain drops culminating into a heavy down pour. In each instance, I would manage to kick in and supplement or challenge his knowledge of the bible. Luckily, I had managed to convince him that I wasn’t green on matters of the Christian faith but the wedge came about when he began to loosely strain that Jesus is not lord, merely a servant of the Almighty God just like other prophets. And that he (Jesus) appeared to man in a reincarnated form different from his past being when he was Archangel Michael. All this mysticism seems inexplicable and sudden to believe. I panicked and immediately my thoughts started to linger away in revelations about a verse that warns of false prophets and how they would come in the last days. I cut him short and asked him point blank.

“is Jesus your lord and personal savior”?

“Yes,...” he replied hesitantly and continued “In some way because it’s obvious that he died for us on the cross but the ultimate savior above all is God Almighty and it is he that you should credit as your lord and personal savior.”

I was lost between acknowledging his argument and protesting. It was no longer a discussion about Christian faith. It was now a question of one’s religious beliefs and the true Christian religion like he insisted time and again. Was he trying to divert me into a certain religion that believes in the reincarnation of Archangel Michael as Jesus? The intricacy of religion seemed hard to withstand. It was now dark. How time had quickly elapsed, I could not remember. I excused the young man and left in disbelief. (to be continued)

Collins Tumukunde shandaba