One time, I was at the Cheesecake Factory—which I lovingly refer to as my northside office—for a lunch meeting. A young lady was serving our table, and for some reason the Holy Spirit kept saying, “She’s beautiful… She’s beautiful… She’s beautiful… “
I didn’t want to tell the young lady she was beautiful—I’m married! I didn’t want her to think the wrong thing!
But the Holy Spirit kept saying the same thing over and over.
So I asked the guy I was eating with, “I want to run this by you. I feel like the Lord is telling me to tell this young lady that she’s beautiful, but I don’t want you to think that I’m hitting on her, so if you say I shouldn’t, then I won’t.”
He looked at her, looked at me, and said, “Nah, bro. Tell her.”
What could I say but “Okay”?
When she came back, I just said, “Hey, I just want to tell you, you’re just such a beautiful person.”
The girl almost lost it at the table. She literally went blank-faced, her eyes welled up, and she couldn’t keep it together, so she walked away.
I was like, “Oh boy. That went well. Manager’s probably coming now.”
About ten minutes later, she came back, and she said, “I got adopted as a baby, and for my whole life, I’ve never felt like I was beautiful. Then you said that, and it hit something on the inside of me, and I don’t even know what to do with it.”
Guess what? I didn’t turn it into a counseling session. I didn’t have her sit down there in the booth so I could “tell her what she needs to do,” or pray out loud for her. An organ drops into the middle of the restaurant’s parquet floor, and the lights dim: “Father God… Father God…”
Ha! I’m sorry, I just couldn’t resist that.
But no! I just said, “Well, I just felt like God told me to tell you that.”
Booyah! Snuck a little God in there, and I was done.
The piece in her life that needed it has already been disturbed, and I’m out. I’m not here to close the deal and rehabilitate her life right there in the restaurant. I want to eat my fries and my turkey burger while they’re hot! (They use the thigh meat—it’s fantastic!) Sorry, not sorry if you end up at the Cheesecake Factory after this.
Maybe for you, it’s not your northside office. Maybe it’s Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, In-N-Out, Wendy’s, or that deliciously sweet little mom-and-pop BBQ place you love down the street where they sneak you free biscuits when they pack up your food. Maybe you’re into DIY, and you’re always at the hardware store or the garden store. Maybe you’re the cook in your family, and you’re always at the grocery store or the farmer’s market. Maybe you always stop at the same gas station on the way to work. Wherever you find yourself frequenting, there are opportunities that God will give you, and when they arise, He’ll give them to you according to your personality. You don’t have to go out and look for it or hunt for it, going after it with Bible-thumping intensity.
Calm down.
The Holy Spirit will make it happen.
Tim Ross joins Randy and Tammy this Wednesday and Thursday on LIFE TODAY. Excerpted from Welcome To The Basement by Tim Ross. Copyright ©2024 by Tim Ross. Used by permission of Nelson Books, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.
