Be Willing to Get Messy

One of my favorite true stories is a video that Focus On The Family put out 30 or more years ago called A Man Called Norman.

It’s about a family that moved into a house across from “old weird Norman” - an elderly man that people in the town made fun of and no one took the time to get to know.

It’s an account of the unlikely friendship that emerged between Mike Adkins, a Christian singer and speaker, and Norman, the town joke.

It started with Mike helping Norman fix his lawnmower. But each time he interacted with Norman, God would prompt his heart to take it a little further. It led to Mike and his family inviting Norman to their house, to professional baseball games, on vacation, and helping Norman clean up both his house and his personal hygiene.

Ultimately, that earned Mike the opportunity to share the gospel with Norman, which led to Norman asking Jesus into his heart.

It’s a touching story that I haven’t properly given justice in such a short summary. I’ve watched it dozens of times and shown it to students and adults at least a dozen more times over the years.

It had a profound impact on my life, and God, in his sovereignty, would eventually bring my own Norman into my life.

My Norman:

Back when I was a youth pastor in Wilkesboro, NC, the church started me out as a part-time youth pastor because it was a new position. That meant I needed to work another job to supplement my income. With my background in journalism, I was hired as the sports editor of the local paper. But the schedules of a youth pastor and a sports editor both demand you to be available nights and weekends, so it wasn’t a good fit. I needed a job where I could have a routine daily schedule so that I could work my ministry schedule around it. So I left the newspaper and took a job at Tyson chicken, one  of the big plants in town. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but I would soon discover that God had a divine appointment for me there. I would soon meet my own Norman in my life - and just like the Focus on the Family story - we would develop an unlikely friendship that would drastically affect both of our lives.

My Norman’s real name was Dennis but everyone called him Little Man. He was about 5 feet tall and looked like the old comic book character Snuffy Smith. I noticed that everyone made fun of him and no one sat with him at lunch.

For some reason, the Lord just put an overwhelming burden on my heart for Dennis. I started seeking him out at lunch and began to get to know him. Turns out he was starting over in life and was renting a room within walking distance of the plant because he didn’t have money for a car.

I started giving him rides to and from work and helping him run errands, which eventually led to me asking him to church. He wasn’t too warm on the idea at first and there were a couple of Sundays where he said he would go and I would go to pick him up and he wouldn’t be there.

I had told the leaders in my church that I had invited this guy that might not look or even smell like their normal visitor, but I asked them to love on him and make him feel welcome.

Finally, he came to church and the people in our church welcomed him in with open arms.

One night, when I was packing for a Labor Day Youth Retreat, I got a call from a pay phone from Dennis. He had a family emergency back in Maryland and needed someone to take him that night to a bus stop in Winston-Salem - about an hour away - so he could catch a bus going that way. I was up to my elbows in getting ready for the retreat but I dropped everything and took him to the station. I half wondered if I would ever see him again.

Surprisingly, he came back a week later. From there, things settled into a bit of a groove. We continued to eat together at lunch. He continued coming to church with me. Eventually, he scraped together enough money to buy an old truck and started driving to church on his own.

In February of that year, our second child, Hannah Faith, was born. She was born on a Saturday evening, so we were still in the hospital the following morning instead of being at church. The Pastor announced the news of our baby girl being born at church so we started getting calls and a few visits right after church.

Around lunchtime, we got a knock on the door of our hospital room and to my surprise there was Dennis. He was beaming from ear to ear. I thought, “Wow, he’s excited as we are!”

He said, “I heard the exciting news, so I just wanted to come and say congratulations.” I was truly touched that he would visit us.

But then he said something that I was not expecting at all and explained the reason for his joy. “I also wanted to tell you that when they gave the invitation today, I asked Jesus into my heart! I couldn’t wait to tell you!”

I was floored, elated and overwhelmed all at once. I mean, that’s why we invest in people and invite them to church. But there comes a point when you just don’t think anything like that will happen.

I have shared that story countless times through the years, and I almost never get through that scene in our hospital room without crying.

Through our relationship, God showed me the value of getting messy - stepping out of your comfort zone, responding to the burden He lays on our hearts, being willing to be inconvenienced.

It’s in the messiness that God begins to work. I’ve learned that people don’t care how much you know until they know that you care.

If I had never sat down with a lonely person at the lunch table that day, I would have never met my Norman. I would have never received the blessing of that incredible moment in that hospital room. And perhaps he never would have accepted Christ as His savior.

Is God prompting you to get messy? Has he placed a burden on your heart for someone? Don’t put it off any longer. Who knows what God has in store for you and that person?