I was tired, and I knew tomorrow was going to a rough day at school. As soon as I got in my car and headed down the road, I saw a man walking down the road in some dirty coveralls. This guy immediately turned around and stuck his thumb out, asking for a ride home. Not what I wanted to see.
The last thing I wanted was to pick this guy up and take him wherever he was headed, much less have a conversation with him. But God wouldn’t let me just pass him by. I felt like I had to pick this man up for some reason, almost like he had something to tell me and I couldn’t go past him till I heard it. So reluctantly I stop, cleared out my front seat, and picked up Silas the Hitchhiker.
I introduced myself, and asked him where he was going. “Well, I’m actually just waiting for my truck to be loaded at the plant, I’ve been driving for 12 straight hours and I’m about to head back with a new shipment, thought I would just hike around this town a little bit”. My first thought was “Great, I picked up a hitchhiker who has a car, which would be my luck”, but then we started talking. “So your name is Steven”, he said, “That’s a Bible name just like mine, you read the Bible?”… This caught my interest. “Yea man, of course I do, I’ve got mine right here!” I said. It was at the sound of this statement that I saw all the emotion flow out of Silas’ face, and his big smile turn into a frown. What he said next was weird to hear coming from a man in dirty coveralls who was asking for a ride not five minutes ago.
“Drop me off” he said in a sad voice. “Uhh what, don’t you want me to take you somewhere?” I said. “No” he said. “I told you I’m a truck driver, but really I’m a preacher, and a fisherman. Since you’re a believer, all you can do is drop me off and pray that a lost person who needs the Lord will pick me up, then I can share the gospel with someone”.
“But what if no one picks you up, and you have to walk all the way back to the plant to get your truck?” I asked him. “Then that’s all right, I’ll walk a thousand miles to tell somebody about my God”, and with those words Silas the fisherman, not the hitchhiker, changed my life.
So many times in my life I sit around and wait for God to put someone in front of my face to share His love with, but here was a guy who had been driving for 12 hours, and instead of sleeping, he was out standing in the middle of the road trying to share the gospel with someone. He wasn’t waiting for the door to open, he was kicking it down. What if I, and every other Christian, carried the same passion as this man? What looked like a truck driver hitchhiking home was really a fisherman standing in the middle of the river. I decided then it was time to be a fisherman of men.
Matthew 4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
