Man comes to know Christ during 2-hour plane ride

Flying into Jacksonville, Fla., last week for the Jacksonville Pastor’s Conference, Southwestern President Paige Patterson and First Lady Dorothy Patterson sat apart from one another on the plane due to issues with their reservations. Deeming their separation an unfortunate circumstance, Patterson reflects, “Usually, when something like that happens, I wonder what God is up to. I soon found out.”

The seat next to Patterson was taken by a man named Jack,* whom Patterson describes as “a bear of a man.” When he first sat down, Jack ordered an alcoholic beverage—his first of two on the two-hour plane ride—and as he and Patterson conversed, Jack’s language was marked by profanities.

Considering his upcoming sermon series on Christian virtue, with the first sermon centering on love, Patterson asked himself, “How can I love this man?” For as he listened to Jack and observed his behavior, Patterson initially characterized him as “hard to love.”

But the more Patterson listened to Jack, the more he did love him. “There was, in spite of all that hard exterior, a heart in the man,” Patterson says. “He was generous, kind; he was loving of his children, and he kept talking about them.”

Eventually, Jack began to tell Patterson about his father, noting that “something strange” had happened to him in his later years. “My father was a man who didn’t care about God or anything else,” Jack said. “But right toward the end of his life, while he was dying, he began to want to read the Bible all the time. Something happened in his life, and God just changed him and then, I guess, took him on to heaven.”

Realizing the opportunity God had just given him, Patterson asked Jack if he would like to see his father again. Shocked, Jack said “yes.” But Patterson responded, “Not gonna happen.” Jack acknowledged that this was probably true.

But then Patterson said, “On the other hand, it can happen. But let me tell you what you’d have to do….” Patterson proceeded to share the Gospel with Jack, explaining what Christ did on sinners’ behalf, and how they can now have a relationship with Him by believing in Him and confessing Him as Lord. In doing so, Patterson explained, such people are forgiven their sins and assured of an eternity in heaven.

As the plane began to descend into Jacksonville, Patterson asked, “Can we pray together?” “Please,” Jack answered.  

Patterson put his hand on Jack’s arm and they bowed together in prayer, and Jack asked the Lord to save him. “He got quieter and quieter, because he was having trouble getting the words to come, he was so deeply moved,” Patterson says. “Through his tears, he invited Jesus into his heart. When he looked up, he was the happiest man I think I have ever seen.”

Patterson says Jack ignored him for the rest of their time on the flight, because by then the plane was low enough that Jack’s cell phone worked, so he called his wife to tell her what had just happened to him. He then called his daughter—who was sitting in a car at the Jacksonville airport waiting to pick him up—because he could not wait to tell her about his salvation.

“Man, all you have to do is talk to people, and they’ll just swing the door wide open,” Patterson says of this encounter. “… I was so grateful that God had somehow worked in me to see through all the rough exterior and love that bear of a man.”

*Name changed to protect anonymity.