I joined several hundred others at a Christian conference in London.  I was there on my own and at teatime on the second day I spotted someone else who looked solitary and we went to a cafe up the road. We ordered a large pizza and divided it between us. He was a young man who said he’d been a Christian only a short while. Someone had invited him to the Conference and he’d enjoyed being there. He was amazed by the number of people and the sense of vitality.

His story was that he had travelled all over the country as a musician, playing the guitar with a group and what he called ‘getting into scrapes’. At some point he found that his sister had become a Christian. Whenever he saw her he tried to tease her about it or be sarcastic, but really he was impressed by the change in her. He tried himself to pray a prayer of commitment to God but didn’t feel much effect.

Many more months had gone by and he had found himself in some situation that felt desperate to him at the time. In the solitude of his room he had called out, ‘Oh God, if you’re real, please show yourself’. At this point he leaned towards me over the table and said seriously, ‘I don’t know if you’ll believe this’. What had happened was that he saw Jesus walk into the room. Jesus had not spoken but had just stood with a gesture of his hand indicating, ‘I’m here if you need me’.

The vision had quickly disappeared but had left him amazed. Life continued. But gradually his perception was that in some radical way his life had altered on the inside. He found a local church to attend and had persevered in going even though it wasn't specially welcoming. He was aware of a strong impulse to reach out to people in the culture which he knew and find right ways of expressing what he had found. He said he had lived for years with nobody in any circumstance ever telling him anything about Jesus.

It can be wonderful when God communicates in a visionary way. Of course it must not be implied that seeing Jesus in vision is a superior way of knowing him. In John’s Gospel Jesus pronounces a special Easter blessing on the overwhelming majority of his future disciples when he says ‘Happy are those who have not seen me and yet have believed’ (John 20.29).

I enjoyed meeting this person. I did not keep contact with him so I do not know what the further passage of years may have brought for him. I hope that God's call on his life has continued to be worked out.

Christian basics > Conversation over pizza