"I Saw a Tabernacle and I Thought of You."

Something sort of weird happened this week.  A co-worker said to me, "I saw a tabernacle and I thought of you."  Hmmmmm.  That was a first.

Let me back up a bit.  This co-worker (let's call him Sam) knows that I'm a Christian and that I used to be a professional pastor.  From what I can tell, Sam is nominally Roman Catholic.  He holds to some of the traditions, but doesn't seem to care too much for God.  Sam lives in a neighborhood where a local church has constructed a temporary model of an O.T. tabernacle.  I saw it myself; it looks something like the model in the photo above.

Sam drives by the tabernacle every day.  For some reason the tabernacle made him think of me.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.  No one has ever said anything remotely like this to me before.  I suppose it could be worse.  He could have said something like, "I saw an illegal sweat shop and thought of you" or, "I saw a strip club and thought of you."

The tabernacle is certainly symbolic of someone wonderful: Jesus Christ. In that sense, I'm glad Sam said what he did. However, I think what's really going on is that he knows my job was as a salaried pastor, pastors deal with the bible, and the tabernacle is in the bible.

I'm hoping to make more of a positive impression on Sam in the days ahead for the cause of Christ.

That got me thinking. What would I like Sam to eventually say makes him think of me? I've come to this conclusion: I'd love to hear Sam utter these words, "I saw someone sacrificially and lovingly help a stranger in the name of Jesus Christ and I thought of you."

That would be great.