An Encounter With God

I salvaged some files from an old hard drive and found this story.  According to the file date it is from March, 25th, 1997.

An Encounter With God

by Paul Halverson

  

The secretary’s voice came over the intercom, “Mr. Smith, your appointment is here.”

Mr. Smith replied back, “Great.  Send Him on in.”

After a moment, there was a knock at the door.  “Come in!” Mr. Smith shouted.

God walked into the office.  “God! I’m glad I could squeeze you in, I've got a full schedule today.  Have a seat.  Make yourself comfortable.  I’ll be right with you.”

Five minutes passed with Mr. Smith working at the computer.  “John?” God asked.

“Almost done, God, give me a few more minutes.”

John continued working at the computer.  More minutes passed.  “John, we should talk,” God said.

“Right, one more second and I’ll be finished.”

A few more minutes passed and John finally finished.  “All right, I’m glad I got that out of the way.  Thank you for being patient, God.  OK, so what did you want to see me about?”

“How are things going?” God asked.

“Not too bad.  Busy though.”

The secretary’s voice came over the intercom, “Mr. Smith, your wife is on line 3.”

“Thank you,” he replied, then to God he said, “Can you hold on, I’ll only be a second.”

John picked up the phone.  “Hi.”  “No, it will probably be late tonight.”  “Can your mom do it?”  “How about mine?”  “Oh? I didn't know that.”  “Yeah, I could do that.”  “I love you.”  “Um, hold on a second.”  John looked at his appointment book.  “Yes, we could.”  “I love you, too”  “Bye.”

“Sorry about that God, thanks for your patience.  My wife needed me to pick up the kids tonight.”

“How is your wife?” God asked.

“Oh, she’s good.  Busy though.”

The secretary’s voice came over the intercom, “Mr. Smith, you have a call holding on line 1.”

“Thank you.” He replied, then to God he said, “I’ll make this one quick.”

John answered the call.  “Hello, this is John.”  “Hi Tim.”  “No, we can’t do that.”  “What about Frank?”  “He wouldn't, huh?”  “OK let me call him.”  “Yeah, he should.  I’ll talk to you later.”  He hung up the phone.

“One more second, God, sorry about this.”

John looked at his desk for a moment then picked up the phone again.  “Frank please.”  “Thank you.”  “Frank.  This is John.”  “You were, huh?”  “We can’t keep doing business like this, it is a waste of both mine and your time, and you know how precious that is.”  “Now listen, just work through it, and we’ll fix it in the future.”  “No.”  “No.”  “Frank, you are being difficult, I've got better things to do than to have you waste my time like this.”  “Thank you, Frank”  “You have a fine day.”  He slammed the phone down.

“Some people just don’t get the concept of time.”  He said frustrated.  “God, I need a few more minutes, this needs to be taken care of.”

John picked up the phone again.  “Doug please.”  “Doug we need to solve this problem, ASAP.  Let’s get-”  “Today.”  “Why not?”  “How about the day after?”  “Not until next week!”  “Doug this is ridiculous, it is important that we talk about this.”  “Give me a few minutes tomorrow morning?”  “Yeah that will work.”  “OK, I’ll see you tomorrow night then.”  “Right, talk to you later.”  He hung up the phone.

“Some people are just so hard to meet with.  You would think that because this is so important he would make more time for me.  Well, I’ll take what I can get I guess.  Thanks again for your patience God.  So what else did you want?”

“I was hoping we could start spending more time together.” God replied.

John chuckled, “I wish I had more to give, I mean, I hardly have time for myself.”

“It is important, John,” God said.

“It’s been pretty hectic around here as of late.”

“Look at me John.  It is important that we grow in our friendship.”

There was a quick knock at the door, and a man popped his head in, “John, if we are going to make our reservations we need to leave now.”

“OK,” John said, “On my way.”  He turned to God.  “I didn't realize how much time had passed.  I need to leave, maybe we can get together next week.”  He looked down at his appointment book.  “You know next week is booked, in fact this whole month doesn't have too many openings in it.  I’ll tell you what, how about when I get some free time,  I’ll give you a call.”

John grabbed his jacket and appointment book, and headed towards the door.  He stopped and turned back to God.  “Thank you for being so patient, I really appreciate it.  I’ll talk to you soon.”

After the door had closed God answered ... “I’ll be waiting.”