Waiting for Reuben

I had always been jealous of people with stories, the ones that give you goosebumps and make you go, "Oh my! God is actually real!" One story, told to me by a man about his family friend, stood out to me most. It was about a girl who, while driving to the store one day and listening to some worship music, suddenly decided she had had enough of her lukewarm faith.

"God," she said, "I want to completely devote my life to you. Whatever you tell me to do, I will do it. Wherever you tell me to go, I will go there."

When she reached the store and was about to get out of the car, she felt a voice inside her head say, "I want you to go into that store and stand on your head." Deeming it too ridiculous, she brushed it off as her imagination. However, the same thought came to her twice more and, remembering the promise she had just made to God, she relented. She went into the store and walked around until there was no one else left but her and the cashier. She took a deep breath. This was the moment.

"Um, hey there," she said awkwardly. "Look what I can do!"

She hadn’t known until that moment that she could stand upside down on her hands, but she found herself doing it. When she got back down, she grabbed her juice, ran towards the cashier, planning to get out of there as soon as possible. When she got to the cashier, however, she found him crying. She asked him what was wrong.

"You will never believe it," he began, "but two people came in here about two hours ago. They were telling me about Jesus. I laughed and said that I wouldn’t believe in Him until someone came in here and stood on their head." That young man accepted Jesus that day.

This story touched me to the core. I longed for a life that was an adventure with God, a life full of stories that proved His existence and care for each of His creation. I longed to be brave and unashamed in challenging people’s notions about God and sharing Jesus. This story inspired three friends of mine and I to try the “treasure hunting” method.

We invited two of our international friends, Daniel and Seta, who had a lot of experience with “treasure hunting” to guide us. The six of us met at the office of the ministry I was working for at the time. Daniel explained the process in English and I translated it to Armenian for my friends. Basically, we would divide into two groups and pray together, asking God to give us clues about who we should approach and offer to pray for. Then, we each would listen and write down whatever words or images came to mind, even if they seemed weird or irrelevant. Most importantly, Daniel said that our success would not depend on the outcome of what we did or the reactions of the people we approached. Simply the fact that we had listened to God's voice and obeyed Him meant that we had succeeded. We split into two groups and I ended up with Daniel and my friend Garen.

Before the three of us even started praying, the name "Reuben" came to me. I waited until we had actually prayed before writing anything down, but as soon as we finished praying, the name "Reuben" came to me again. I wrote it down this time, among other phrases: rectangular glasses, black jacket, blue jeans. In my mind, I had a picture of a young man walking down the street near our office and passing by the vegetable store. I wrote down those details too. We each shared everything we had written down and, since the vegetable store was the closest, we decided to go there first.

A part of me felt hopeful and intrigued as we waited, while another felt ridiculous. Garen and I started joking about how we were getting stood up by Reuben. Several people passed by, none of them matching the image I had seen.

"Maybe we should just move on," I suggested. "We have other people to look for."

"Okay," Daniel said, "But let's just wait one more minute. If he doesn't show up, we'll go."

Just then, we noticed a middle-aged man coming our way, wearing blue jeans and a black jacket.

"Look, Christina, he seems to have the right clothes!" Daniel whispered.

"Yeah, but the guy I saw was younger." Any excuses were welcome, even when I did remember Daniel explaining that not all the details had to match up.

"It's okay, there's no harm in trying. You should talk to him. He's your guy.”

The man was getting closer and closer and I was only getting more nervous. He had almost reached us and would soon pass by. I was going to miss the opportunity and I knew it. I felt my heart burning in my chest and my throat.

"I’m sorry, I can't!" I pleaded, looking to Garen for support. He seemed equally nervous as me. The man walked past us. Daniel gave up arguing with me and ran after him. He stopped him and, with his broken Armenian, tried to explain what we were doing. The man watched Daniel patiently as he struggled to remember certain words. I could not leave him alone. I ran to his side.

"Hi, this is Daniel and I'm Christina. Daniel was telling you that we are praying for people and were wondering if there's something you’d like us to pray for." I felt my courage building up. What could we lose at this point? He already thought we were nuts.

"Sure, pray for the Armenian army," he said. By the look on his face, he might as well have said, "I know the tactics of you soul-fishing sects and it ain’t gonna work with me."

"Sure. We can do that," Garen jumped in. "But is there anything personal you would like us to pray for?"

"Just pray for the army," he said with a smart smile.

"No problem," I said, a bit disappointed. "Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to ask your name," I added.

"It's Reuben."

I clasped my hand to my mouth. Garen and I looked at each other for a moment before breaking into an incredulous laughter. Daniel was smiling to himself. I don’t know how long we went on like that before remembering poor Reuben, standing there and staring at us with a most puzzled look.

I tried to collect myself and explain what was going on. “You won't believe it, but we actually prayed beforehand and asked God to show us who He would like us to pray for and look!”

I pulled out the piece of paper on which I had written his name, the clothes he would be wearing, the street he would be on, and that we would see him near the vegetable store. I pointed it all out to him and saw his eyes widening with shock.

"Do you have my last name there, too?" he asked. I thought he was joking but noticed how seriously he was searching through my paper. I was too overwhelmed to understand or answer his question.

"Maybe we can pray now?" Garen whispered to me.

"Yeah, of course."

The three of us bowed our heads again and I began to pray for the Armenian army and thanked God for the heart he had given Reuben for the young men on the borders. At intervals, bits of laughter would burst out as I prayed. When we finished, Reuben was still looking at us with a "What on earth just happened?" look.

"I don't know what to say,” I said most honestly. “God knows you, He really knows you. He knows everything about you and He loves you!"

He hardly uttered any words, even as we said goodbye, dumbfounded as he was, but I detected a small smile forming below his rounded eyes as we walked away.

"This isn't real," Garen kept repeating as we walked towards the bus stop.

"I KNOW!" I kept exclaiming back.

Daniel, who had seen more miracles like this, seemed less astonished (or perhaps he was more reserved in his way of expressing his feelings), but I could see how happy he was for us that we had had this experience. He did point out that in the future, it would be good if we stayed longer with the person to see if they had any questions or wanted to talk more. “But it’s alright,” he said. “You’re learning.”

As we were standing at the bus stop, I suddenly remembered and pointed out that there was one detail that hadn't matched my description of Reuben: he wasn't wearing any glasses.

"You should have asked him if he wears reading glasses," Daniel said.

We laughed and waited for the bus that would take us to our next treasure.