I thought I had learned the lesson “don’t judge a book by its cover” many years ago, but it appears that I had more to learn…

I was running to the library with my daughter alongside me, riding her bike. As we traveled through the civic park, we both spied an older man wearing an a-frame sign. He was walking around the community, hoping for people to notice the salvation messages printed on his boards. Given that I wasn’t wearing my glasses, I couldn’t read the words and I took my daughter’s word for it that the man was a Jehovah’s Witness from a previous group we had previously come across and that he wouldn’t be open to hearing about our experiences. Despite this, I did feel moved to stop and speak to the man, but I didn’t (based on my assumptions).

Then, one evening a few days later, we spontaneously decided to go for an evening stroll from the house, down to the same area. As we neared the same park, Don spied the same man with the same a-frame sign. I hadn’t shared with Don what had happened a few days earlier, and Don simply immediately got speaking with the man as soon as he read the signage.

It turned into a very long, very blessed, Holy Spirit-led conversation as Don shared with the man many scriptures to prove that salvation involves way more than someone simply giving their heart to Jesus. Toward the end of the discussion, we discovered that the man and his wife are actually both Spiritfilled (and can obviously pray in tongues). This led to even more encouragement for them to increase their prayer life, making the most of what God has given them — to pray daily in the Holy Spirit, individually and together as husband and wife, and then watch how their relationship with each other and, more importantly, with the Lord grows and strengthens. (It seemed that praying in tongues wasn’t something that the man was accustomed to be purposefully doing on a regular basis, despite God’s encouragement in His Word to do so.)

Rarely are people like this humble enough to ask, “So, what else exactly should I be telling people…?” But this is what the man asked, and it was very beautiful to see his tears of tenderness toward God and His Word as he eagerly inquired about various scriptures. Before we parted ways, we all prayed in the Holy Spirit (tongues) right there on the street as we huddled together. The man teared up again at that point, seemingly relieved to be freely praying in tongues and touched by God’s words of encouragement for him that night.

Needless to say, I eagerly shared my story (from the other day’s events) with everyone after we left, and I learned a valuable lesson not to assume that someone won’t be open to hearing Truth!