Eight Minute Relationships

I asked the lift operator, as I was getting off, how long does the lift take from bottom to top. “Seven minutes, unless it’s slow like today, then eight minutes.”

Eight minutes! It is amazing what two people can learn about each other in eight minutes. In eight minutes I learned about all the places in Europe one of our exchange students has skied and how excited he was to ski Colorado. I met a ten year old who was excited that her parents let her ski by herself.

Most of the time I rode with people I already knew. Each time we talked and shared and learned something about each other. When I was with strangers it was a little different. Each time I looked for a way to turn the conversation to God. On the slopes the people we saw were objects to avoid running into. On the lifts we had a brief opportunity to know one of those objects as a person and perhaps share a brief witness of Christ in eight minutes.

Last year I shared the gospel with an expert skier. In eight minutes I learned about the thrill of his level of skiing. He learned how much I appreciate what God has created and done for me. At first he acted like he did not want to talk about God but waited until the ride was over to put his ear buds in and turn up his iPod. We could have passed the eight minutes in silence. But, life is too short to waste an opportunity to share some evidence of Jesus in our lives, no matter how brief.

In eight minutes I learned that the person riding with me lived in a nearby town and worked two jobs. One job was for a florist and the other at a winery. We joked about whether flowers and wine go together. I told her I was a pastor and did not drink. I reflected that I knew too many people who could not handle alcohol. I asked about her church and her relationship with God. She told me she was a Lutheran and reminded me that Martin Luther made his own beer. She also agreed that alcohol was an anesthetic and should not be abused. We both agreed that it is important to raise children in the church with good values.

In John 4, Jesus met a woman at a well in Samaria. It was not a very long conversation. In that brief encounter he found out all there was to know about her, (verse 39). She discovered that Jesus was the Messiah, (verse 29). It takes less than eight minutes to read the conversation yet it changed her life and later changed her whole town.

Eight minutes is not long enough for us to have a life long relationship with another person. It is long enough for us to introduce someone else to a life changing relationship with Jesus. Think about it the next time you are staring at the elevator buttons, or talking to wait-staff at a restaurant, or … riding on a ski lift.
Bro. Robin