MILTON WAS FLYING on a plane from Atlanta to Dallas…
He happened to have the middle of the three seats on one side of the aisle. To his right, sitting next to the window, was a young girl who obviously had Down’s syndrome. She began to ask him some simple but almost offensive questions.
“Mister,” she said, “did you brush your teeth this morning?”
Milton, very shocked at the question, squirmed around a bit and then said, “Well, yes, I brushed my teeth this morning.”
The young girl said, “Good, ’cause that’s what you’re supposed to do.” Then she asked, “Mister, do you smoke?”
Again, Milton was a little uncomfortable, but he told her with a little chuckle that he didn’t.
She said, “Good, ’cause smoking will make you die.” Then she said, “Mister, do you love Jesus?”
Milton was really caught by the simplicity and the forthrightness of the little girl’s questions. He smiled and said, “Well, yes, I do love Jesus.”
The little girl with Down’s Syndrome smiled and said, “Good, ’cause we’re all supposed to love Jesus.”
About that time, just before the plane was ready to leave, another man came and sat down on the aisle seat next to Milton and began to read a magazine. The little girl Milton again and said, “Mister, ask him if he brushed his teeth this morning.”
Milton was really uneasy with that one, and said that he didn’t want to do it. But she kept nudging him and saying, “Ask him! Ask him!” So Milton turned to the man seated next to him and said, “Mister, I don’t mean to bother you, but my friend here wants me to ask you if you brushed your teeth this morning.”
The man looked startled, of course. But when he looked past Milton and saw the young girl sitting there, he could tell her good intentions, so he took her question in stride and said with a smile, “Well, yes, I brushed my teeth this morning.”
As the plane taxied onto the runway and began to take off, the young girl nudged Milton once more and said, “Ask him if he smokes.” And so, good-naturedly, Milton did, and the man said that he didn’t smoke.
As the plane was lifting into the air, the little girl nudged Milton once again and said, “Ask him if he loves Jesus.”
Milton said, “I can’t do that. That’s too personal. I don’t feel comfortable saying that to him.”
But the girl smiled and insisted, “Ask him! Ask him!”
Milton turned to the fellow one more time and said, “Now she wants to know if you love Jesus…”
The man could have responded like he had to the two previous questions — with a smile on his face and little chuckle in his voice. And he almost did.
But then the smile on his face disappeared, and his expression became serious. Finally he said to Milton, “You know, in all honesty, I can’t say that I do. It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I don’t know Him. I don’t know how to know Him. I’ve wanted to be a person of faith all my life, but I haven’t known how to do it. And now I’ve come to a time in my life when I really need that very much.”
As the plane soared through the skies between Atlanta and Dallas, Milton listened to the fellow talk about the brokenness in his life. Then he began a Bible study and explained how to become a person of faith.
And he did all of that because a little girl with Down’s Syndrome had asked him to ask the fundamental question that all Christians should be finding a way to communicate, “Do you love Jesus?” Stan Toler, “God Has Never Failed Me, But He’s Sure Scared Me To Death A Few Times.”
KneEmail: “And He said to them, ‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16.15
Bible reading for 01.07.11:
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