Picture this:
A friend of yours sets you up on a blind date. You normally don’t do blind dates, but
since it’s been over six months since you’ve sat across a dinner table with someone of
the male persuasion other than your 11 year-old-nephew, you figure you’d give it a shot.
After doing a final once over in the mirror, the doorbell rings. Not wanting to seem
too anxious, you purposely wait for the second ring before you answer the door.
“Who is it?” you chime.
“It’s me, Jeffrey.” came the reply.
You open the door with a smile and the male figure returns with a bright grin of his own.
Relaxed by the mutual shows of kindness, you take a moment to size him up.
He’s not the finest thing in the world, definitely not a 10, more like a 6. His face is
all fuzzy with a beard that looks like it hadn’t received any attention in weeks.
You wonder why, since this man knew he was going on a date, he didn’t take the time to
even get a haircut? Also, he’s wearing name brand jeans and a striped shirt that looks
totally out of style. Still, you invite him in with a sigh.
You offer him a glass of lemonade, and he gladly accepts.
As you hand him his drink while you and he have a seat on separate chairs, the first thing
out of your mouth is, “So what do you do?”
“I’m an entrepreneur” Jeff says.
“Oh really? What’s your business?” you ask.
“I install carpet.”
“Oh,” you say with a sip of lemonade – not impressed at all.
You cell phone suddenly rings – it’s your mother so you say, “excuse me, I gotta take this,”
and head to the kitchen to take the call.
As soon as you say, “hello,” you mom replies but then the call drops as you realized you
hadn’t charged your cell phone in three days. You ask Jeffrey if you could use his cell
phone because you had something important but brief to tell your mother and Jeffrey
informs you, “I don’t have a cell phone.”
“You don’t have a cell phone?” you ask.
“No.” Jeffrey replies with a smile.
“O-kay” You say while placing your hand underneath your chin thinking, “This man can’t
afford a cell phone or a hair cut? Will I be paying for my own meal tonight, or what?”
Finally, you’ve had it, you decide you’d rather enjoy a night curled up on the couch with
your remote control and David Letterman then the possibility of going out with Jeffrey,
here, who may have you eating at some hole in the wall having to wash dishes afterwards.
You kindly ask Jeffrey to leave.
He obliges with no hesitation and you sigh a huge sigh of relief as you close the door
behind him.
Eighteen months later you get a call from your friend who tried to set you up with
Jeffrey. She says she just returned from an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii where
Jeffrey and his wife, Melinda got married.
She said they’re honeymooning in Spain and plan to live in one of his waterfront
mansions in Jacksonville, Florida. Your friend goes on and on about how Melinda is
madly in love with Jeffrey, how he showers her with love, attention, and affection –
how he is her provider and protector, so loving, kind, forgiving, and giving, and how
he is a man of integrity with a warm heart who has saved hundreds of children from
refugee camps by adopting them and caring for them and providing them all scholarships
from the Jeffrey Christos Foundation, which he founded 10 years ago from proceeds from
his business, JC Carpet Plus, which is the no. 1 carpet installation company in the world.
Dumbfounded, you stare at the phone with your mouth wide open.
“That should have been me in Spain!”
Then you hang up the phone and plop down on your old faithful couch and hide your face in
your hands and cry.
Instead of giving a brotha a chance by opting to get to know him better, as a person,
instead of getting to know his assets, you realize that you just lost out on a date and
a lifetime with Jesus Christ.
For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your
sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
2 Corinthians 8:9
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground:
he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we
should desire him. Isaiah 53:11
