Ben sat eagerly awaiting. He was struggling to communicate in a meaningful way to his Asian companion who sat alongside him. Neither of them was very fluent in the same language, which is of course a problem in conversation, however they had been muddling along as best they could in a combination of broken English and Russian. ‘Russglish’ as one might say.

The reason Ben had got himself into this situation was starting to play on his mind. Earlier that morning, he had been sitting quietly, waiting for the first session of the conference he was attending to begin. His newfound Asian friend, also a conference participant, had approached him with a proposal, ‘Two of the girls at the conference want to meet us outside during the break.’

Ben wasn’t used to such offers and didn’t know how to react. He hadn’t had much time actually, as straight after the proposal, his friend had withdrawn to his seat and the conference had begun. He felt a nervousness grow inside himself, and an uncertainty well up inside. Was this a good idea? How could he get out of it?

He did his best to concentrate throughout the first session, but it was hard with such a tempting offer awaiting. When the break finally came, he sheepishly made his way towards the refreshments table, conscious of the fact that his friend had said for them to meet there. Sure enough, just as he was vainly looking around for some milk for his tea, his friend appeared.

Ben being an amiable sort of fellow, who found it hard to refuse, found himself being whisked outside, still undecided if it was what he should really be doing. After all, he’d come to the conference for spiritual growth, not marriage! He comforted himself with the thought that at least he had managed to a nab a good selection of biscuits, including chocolatey ones, before exiting and so had some emotional support.

His companion was very determined, suggesting that he was not unfamiliar with such occurrences and gave the air of knowing what he was doing, which was reassuring. They sat down on a low wall, which offered a token barrier between the paved area just outside of the conference room and the ensuing sports zone. Then they waited.

Ben’s understanding of these things was that the man should take initiative, but he himself hadn’t been very successful with that, which was why this situation was tantalising. In essence, it was an opportunity to meet someone without the hullabaloo of trying to find a way to organise things himself plus the added bonus of not spending endless hours in his mind debating about whether she would be interested or if it was even a good idea!

After his initial reservations, Ben had begun to warm to the idea and began to think to himself that as long as he approached things in a sensible, calm, Godly manner, he couldn’t go far wrong. What could the worst thing be to happen?

To pass the time as they waited, a conversation had struck up between the romantic hopefuls. A challenging one for sure, but using the Russian he knew, Ben had managed to ask a few things, and received Russian replies with some English words mixed in, that he at least partially understood. At first this seemed cumbersome, but as time passed by, he began to realise and appreciate the uniqueness of the moment. He was having fellowship in a language he barely knew with someone from a distant land that he had never been to and indeed had only vaguely heard of. Now, that was something special!

Nevertheless, impatience began to grow. The fellowship was great, but it didn’t stop the butterflies that by this time were churning around in his stomach. He was getting worried that there would be butter inside him soon! Where were the ladies? Maybe they had got confused about the meeting point or were being held up by something? Maybe they had changed their minds, or it had all been a prank to begin with?

Glancing at the time, it began to dawn on Ben that this rendezvous probably wasn’t going to happen. The break was almost over and there wasn’t any sign of those who were supposedly interested in meeting up. The butterflies began to die down and be replaced by a combination of a slight disappointment, but an overwhelming relief that the moment had passed without anything tricky or awkward occurring.

Deflated, but also in some ways elated, Ben and his companion silently accepted that their hopes had been dashed and rose from their stony seat, returning to the second session of the conference, ready to fight another day.

In life, situations often arise where it is hard to know what to think or do. One such example is the Coronavirus. There are two distinctly different schools of thought. One is that it is just a bad case of flu, the other that it is much more contagious and dangerous than other bacterial. Most of us don’t know much about these sorts of viruses so we based our opinion on what we have heard. But often what we hear from others is not necessarily accurate or has a certain bias. Thus, our expectations can easily be mistaken.

Unfortunately, many people take this approach to other important questions in life such as what we believe. Which ever way you look at it, an example of an important question is whether Jesus was who he said he was. If he truly was the Son of God, then we need to listen to what he had to say. On the other hand, if he was something else than the Son of God, that means it’s optional as to how much attention we pay to his teaching.

People resolve this issue in different ways. Some just ignore it, while others say that Jesus didn’t even exist. A middle ground is to accept that he existed, but to say that he was anything from a prophet to a magician who deceived people. There are many arguments that can be given, and much debate to be had for each one. The bottom line though is that it is hard to deny that Jesus existed. There is much written evidence, both Christian and secular, and it is also had to believe that a fantasy figure could have had such a huge impact on the world.

In any case, it is important that we don’t base our opinions on something simply on what we have heard from others. It is worth investigating the evidence for ourselves in order to develop an informed idea of the truth. It is possible that the reality might turn out to be different to what we had thought.

Ben spent the rest of the day in a quandary. Had he done the right thing going outside to meet the girls? Had it even been true that they wanted to meet? This seemed to him to have been wishful thinking, a vane hope that someone would have wanted to meet up with him. Maybe a rouse to the enjoyment of others or perhaps they just had second thoughts. After all it wouldn’t be the first time!

Ben’s judgement on the matter was hazy for a while, until after much deliberating he reached the conclusion that the girls must have thought better. After all, maybe he looked alright at first sight, but it didn’t take much to spy out his weaknesses.

He resigned himself to this cloudy conclusion until he arrived for dinner. After entering the dining hall, where all the conference participants congealed together (strangely without the tardiness which often pervaded the seminars) to await the evenings sustenance, he began to search for a free seat. It was always a trying task to find the right place to sit at mealtimes, so he usually just allowed himself to be taken by the spirit to the spot that had been ordained for him at each respective mealtime.

On this occasion, he felt himself being drawn to a table where there were two free seats opposite one another. When one of the girls who was sitting on this table saw him, she gleefully and invitingly urged him to occupy one of these places. Not being one to refuse an invitation, he sat down. Hardly a minute had past when all of a sudden, the unexpected happen. Opposite him an attractive, blond lady took her place, and without introduction began firing questions at him. Where are you from? What do you do? What’s your opinion of this and that…..

It was quite an interview and it continued throughout the three courses of soup, potato pancakes and funny little pastry desert. Ben had tried to be polite and open with his answers, but it was hard, especially as some of the questions touched on sensitive issues, Why are you here? Where do you get finances from? and what are your future plans? Not that it was bad to discuss such things, but nevertheless a little uncomfortable seeing as they had only just met.

Eventually, just as the last flakes of pastry were being ingested, did the interrogation come to an abrupt end. The blond lady excused herself and she was gone as fast as she had appeared.  Overall, Ben was relieved although there was something quite nice about someone being so interested in finding out about him.

That evening, as he reflected on the day before entering the land of nod, Ben realised that this was probably the lady that he had been due to meet earlier on in the day. Either by design or divine intervention, his meeting with her had been delayed to the mealtime. It hadn’t been by any means what he had expected or indeed hoped, although he was now at least sure of the realities of the situation and no longer fumbling around in his mind in the darkness of vague possibilities.