When God Knocks at the Door

When I was young, a slogan could be heard in my country. Like many others, it was another link in a chain of cheers and personal glorification by which we were judged favorably or unfavorably, depending on our level of commitment: “Only glass cracks; men die on their feet!”

I repeated it many times, fired up by a peculiar feeling. The years pass, and with them the days of empty slogans. Today, wherever I go, I can see the Supermen of my youth, bewildered, their capes in tatters, desperate for a drink of kryptonite juice as they make another attempt to take flight. But they can no longer fly. They cracked along life’s road and fell into the trap of their own slogans. They remain on their feet, haughty and bent on reviving laurels wrecked by frustration and bitterness, but they wander aimlessly, dead in their chronic foolishness.

Not long ago I met one of these Supermen. God led me to him in the way that only God can. After the customary greetings and the necessary questions about friends who are no longer with us, I wanted to give him a bouquet of hopes and Christ’s poem about salvation, but he rejected both without much explanation. He held out his hand to give me a card with his contact details, turned his back on me as one does on an enemy, and I watched him leave with his top hat full of pride and his cape of arrogance. Compassion is the only remedy that consoles you when the ear of the ungodly closes to the word of God out of pride and self-love, thanks to the schemes the enemy works in the heart of a man who boasts that he can live without his Creator.

A week later I received the following message, which went more or less like this: “Faustino: Forgive me for the way I treated you. That week three people spoke to me about the same subject—Christ—and, to tell the truth, I was already tired of hearing the same old refrain. That’s why I reacted as I did. But I’ve been thinking that it isn’t only glass that cracks; men do too. Do you remember those days? Anyway, I’m desperate. My wife left me, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you, because I feel empty, as though life no longer had any meaning. I think I need what you have, whether it’s called Jesus Christ or whatever…call me when you can…please. Carlos.”

You already know how the story ends. If anyone knows what pain is, it is Christ. But when “the shoe pinches” and we give Him a chance to enter a torn heart, He restores it. A man cracks like the most fragile glass when he does not set his foot upon the Rock. Does anyone doubt it? In the end, my Superman friend and God embraced, and now he goes around like a child with a new toy and a new love. He told me that God has already given him a plan to win back everything he lost, and he talks to me about faith as though he himself had discovered it to offer it to humanity.

We all have a Superman friend—proud, successful, prosperous…but empty inside. The world is full of these people in need of compassion, but we focus more on the prosperity they appear to have than on the misery in their hearts. If you speak to them about Christ, you may get the surprise of your life. Perhaps they are waiting for someone to help them take off the superhero disguise and reveal the disfigured face beneath, which can be restored only when they finally hear the voice of Christ.

God bless you!