So I found this website that archives content on the internet. If you go to this site, you can see what was on a lot of websites up to 10 years ago! Long story short, I looked up my site and found some posts that I had thought had been lost when I changed blog hosts. Anyways, here's a flashback to October 22, 2005. It's a post that I had written after going to a Byrnes football game called "Freddy and the Byrnes Game." As a side note, it was also right when Patty and I started dating and when Robin Hunt had just moved to the Upstate.
Tonight I went to see the infamous Byrnes Rebels beat the snot out of Dorman. The crowd was huge so we had to sit in the grass towards the endzone right in the midst of an interesting variety of people. Anyways, there was this dude that was sittin’ down in front of us that was going ballistic whenever Byrnes was doing something good. He would fling his arms around and give people high fives. SO….I decided that my the goal for the football game was to get a high five from this guy at some point before the game ended. I am pleased to announce to you that I got not only one, but TWO high fives from the man, who informed me later that his name was Freddy. I had no clue who the guy was before the game, but I started talkin’ to him cuz he seemed like a dude that would be interesting (that’s an understatement). After a while, Freddy was tellin’ me about how he played football (and two or three other sports) in high school, loved Nascar, and I heard countless stories about sports and life in general. It was hilarious!
Freddy is just another example of something that I have noticed lately. I’ve noticed that people generally will open themselves up to you and tell you about their life if you take the initiative and strike up a conversation. It has happened with me in so many places lately that I can’t help but sit back and think of the possibilities that could result if believers would invest themselves into the people around them. I’m not talking about a fleeting “hey…how are you” conversation, nor conversations that must include a gospel presentation. What I am talking about is breaking the ice with people and listening to their story. I’m talking about not seeing them as a target for conversion or for church membership but rather listening and interacting with them wherever they are in life. Heck…you can even (gasp) end your own masquerade and reveal who you really are to them (but that’s a whole other topic).
By the end of the night, I felt as if I had made a real connection with Freddy and with some other people that were with him. I listened to their stories, laughed with them, exchanged high fives, and genuinely had a good time. And to think, I would have missed out on all of that if the ice hadn’t been broken. Just somethin’ to think about.
