More than Enough

Amanda hung her head in the back of the truck and took a deep breath as the realization of what happened dropped in her stomach like a sandbag.

The truck was already running 4 hours behind, and when it finally did arrive, the ceremony was just finishing and the guests were making their way to the reception hall and to the bar. An hour ago, she sent one of the servers out with her credit card to buy every case of beer she could find within a 5-mile radius of the wedding venue, but she knew it would only buy her half an hour at the most.

The liquor store was scheduled to deliver 6 kegs of beer to the venue between 1:00pm and 3:00pm. Not only did pull into the parking lot 4 hours later than the latest estimate, all 6 kegs were empty when they arrived. 1,500 guests were now filing into the reception hall, and the wide variety of bottled beer she was able to gather together would be gone before the wedding party made their entrance.

"How did you not check to see if they were full?" she snapped at the driver.

"I just drive the truck," he said. "I don't load it. I just drive it."

He held both hands in the air, trying to signify his innocence, but Amanda thought it looked more like surrender.

"Get these things off the truck," she said as she climbed out. "I need to take pictures and find out who is responsible for this. There are 1,500 people walking into that reception and all I have is 6 empty kegs!"

As she walked back toward the door to the kitchen, she passed several of the wedding guests lingering uncomfortably close to where she had just yelled. Several of them were smoking, and the others were talking to each other in low tones. Her stomach dropped again, realizing that they overheard everything and were now whispering about it to themselves. It wouldn't be long before word spread to the bride or groom's family and there would be no covering it up.

"Excuse me," one of the women in the group said. "Did we hear right? Are you completely out of beer?"

Amanda put on a well-used smile and straightened her shoulders, trying to look as confident as she could pretend.

"Unfortunately, there seems to have been some kind of mixup with the truck delivering the kegs, so the bar may close earlier than we anticipated." She spoke calmly, trying to reassure the woman through her tone more than her words. She smiled again and turned toward the back door of the kitchen, hoping her answer wouldn't prompt additional questions.

"They're out of beer," she heard one of them say as she walked away.

She walked back through the kitchen and grabbed two of the bussers and told them to bring the kegs inside and store them somewhere. She spoke quickly as she walked, making her way to the bar to see how much time she had.

---

Mike and Jason both moved quickly toward the back door, exchanging glances of concern, but not saying anything until they got outside. They found the 6 kegs and a tap handle sitting in the parking lot. The truck's taillights were disappearing around the corner.

"Can you carry one by yourself?" Mike said.

"Yeah, I used to be a bartender - you just have to make sure you..." and Jason stopped before he could finish demonstrating how to move a keg by yourself. He had braced himself to pick up a full keg, but the lightness caught him off guard.

With one hand, he raised and lowered the first keg and looked at Mike with confusion and concern. Silently, they raised or rocked each one to confirm they were empty, and then stared at each other.

"What do we do?" Mike asked.

"I don't know. She said to take them inside - do you think she knew they were empty?"

"I have no idea," Mike said nervously.

Together, they were both realizing what this meant and what kind of position it put them in.

"There's no beer," a woman said from behind them. Both Mike and Jason turned and saw a woman walking up from behind them. It felt more like a command than a question, and they both stared at her, not sure what to do in this situation. "Okay," she said. "I've got a plan. Just do whatever he tells you to do," and she pointed to one of the men in the small group a few yards away.

---

Amanda walked through the reception hall to the bar. The bartenders were opening bottle after bottle of the limited supply, trying to keep up with the line of guests forming in front of the counter. They gave her a panicked look as she walked up and she shook her head.

"This is the last of it," one of the bartenders said, pointing to a small stack of bottles in an ice chest behind the bar. No more than two dozen bottles remained. For the next few minutes, Amanda stood and watched the last handful given to the guests.

"I'm sorry," she said to the group of guests in line after the last bottle was gone. "We've run out of beer - the bar is closed."

Exclamations of complaint immediately rose as the news spread further and further back into the line.

"How are you out?" one person said loudly. "Everyone hasn't even been served yet.

"The meals haven't even come out yet!" yelled another.

More and more, the general noise of complaint was stirring and rising in the group around the bar. She knew this would be the reaction, but hearing the noise of complaints growing made her sick to her stomach. The frustration of facing this crowd, knowing that even if she blamed it on the truck driver or her assistant or the liquor store, this crowd wouldn't care. It was her fault. There was no one else standing here.

She retreated and walked quickly through to the kitchen toward the back door. The food would go out and it would be perfect. Everything would be cleaned up and they would be out of the space right on time. But the only thing anyone would remember about her that evening was this failure.

She threw the door open and walked out into the quiet night. Reaching for the pack of cigarettes and lighter in her pocket, she lit a cigarette, her hand shaking as she inhaled deeply. She stood, eyes closed, taking deep breaths of the smoke, trying to calm her heartbeat.

In the quiet, she realized she was hearing running water. Opening her eyes, she looked around and saw one of the bussers she sent out to bring in the empty kegs hunched over one of the kegs with the stem of the keg in one hand and a garden hose in the other. He was filling the keg with hose water.

He was motionless, staring at her with wide eyes. There was water all over the ground and several of the kegs around him. One of the kegs had the pump already hooked up to it. He didn't say a word as she kept her eyes locked on his. Several moments passed as the sound of water filling the keg continued. Amanda tried to process what she was seeing, waiting for him to say some series of words that would explain the scene.

"Why..." she started, not sure how to continue a question she had never been forced to ask before. "What are you doing?"

"Um...I'm..." Jason stammered. "He said to...and we thought..."

"Who said to?" she demanded.

"The...he said to fill them here and tap the keg and bring it to the groom's parents. We thought..."

"Are you insane?!" Amanda snapped, feeling attacked by idiocy at every turn. "Okay, I can't believe I'm having to say this, but we do not serve hose water to guests!"

Amanda looked next to the keg that was tapped and noticed a washing rack full of bar glasses on the ground. Several of them were already missing.

"Please tell me..." she started, unable to finish an unspeakable idea and feeling like she was in a nightmare perfectly crafted to drive her insane.

"He said...we thought..." he stammered again.

Without another word, Amanda threw her cigarette down in the parking lot and ran to the door, throwing it open with such force that it slammed against the wall. The bright fluorescent of the kitchen seemed to fly by her as she dodged servers and cooks to make her way to the reception hall. Bursting through the door to the reception hall, she came face to face with the groom's father. He was a tall, lumbering man. His thick sausage fingers were wrapped around a bar glass, and the second busser was standing beside him.

"I heard from someone that the bar had run out of beer," he boomed. Amanda froze in her place, ready for the barrage of insults - all of which seemed justified right then. "But then this young man brought me this beer, and I cannot for the life of me place what it is. It's extraordinary! I've never tasted anything like it before! Is it a local brew?"

"Um...sort of..." she started, exchanging looks with the Mike, the busser. His eyes were wide as he realized that both of them knew where it came from. He still had another beer in his hand. She couldn't tell if the busser had switched the water with something else or if the groom's father was so drunk already he couldn't tell what it was.

"You like it?" she asked nervously, hoping he wouldn't ask for a name again.

"Like it?" he laughed. "It's the best beer I've ever had! They said you were the best, and now I see why! It's delightful surprises like this that make people loyal you know!"

He laughed and made his way back through the crowd, announcing to everyone that the bar had the most amazing beer he's ever tasted. People started lining up around the bar again with expectant eyes darting around.

Amanda grabbed the other beer out of Mike's hand and smelled it. The foam on top had a rich aroma of hops with a sweet caramel tone. It was beer. Good beer.

"Where did you get this?" she demanded.

"From the keg," Mike whispered, eyes wide and voice hissing as quietly as he could.

She grabbed his arm and they silently and quickly made their way to the back door again. Jason was just finishing the last keg and replacing the stem into the center and locking it in with a pair of pliers.

"Show me," Amanda snapped.

"Jason jumped and pumped the keg a few times and grabbed one of the bar glasses and the tap. He pushed the lever, holding the glass to the side, and out came a frosty, golden-brown liquid, topped with a thick layer of foam. Amanda grabbed the glass and smelled it again. Same smell. She tasted it. It was fresh, cold, delicious beer - not quite like any beer she had tasted before, but very pleasant and very strong.

"I have no idea what's happening," Amanda started. "But keep it happening. Get these kegs to the bar. Now!"

---

The kegs lasted the entire wedding, and there was more leftover at the end. Somehow, every guest at the party did not rave about the perfectly cooked salmon, or how timely and courteous the waitstaff was, or even how well-coordinated the event was. Every comment was about the mystery beer.

The evening was coming to a close, and Amanda was standing at the bar, watching a few stragglers come back for one last beer before their Ubers arrived. She had seen glass after glass be poured with that same rich golden brown color and foam, but each time it felt like it might be the last one, and the next would look like hose water. But it never did.

"It was a great party," someone said beside her.

Amanda turned and saw a young man in his late 20s or early 30s walking up, empty beer glass in hand. The white froth of the previous beer still clung to the sides of the glass from top to bottom. He smiled and put his glass on the bar.

"Thank you," Amanda said in response.

"You're welcome," he said simply and candidly.

The tables were being folded up and the decorations were coming down, so something in Amanda's heart felt like it was safe to call it a success.

"You know," she said. "I thought tonight was going to turn out a lot differently."

"Me too," he said.

"Oh yeah?" she replied.

"You see all these people here tonight? he started. "They had the best beer they've ever had, but they don't know where it came from. They tasted it and said it was unlike anything else they've ever had, and they were right. No one has ever tasted anything like this before because it never existed before. It was a new kind of thing."

Amanda was getting uneasy. She wasn't sure if he knew more than he seemed to know, or if he was drunk and just saying words. He didn't look drunk.

"Can I tell you what is even more beautiful than creating something new?" he asked. 

"Sure," Amanda responded.

"Transforming something old into something new," he said firmly. "Taking things that were broken and fixing them better than they were before they were broken. That's my favorite thing."

Amanda paused to see if he would continue.

"And so this is a great way to start it all," he said. "It's fitting that this is the first one. It's a blueprint for all the others."

"All the other whats? Amanda asked.

"Transformations," he said.

Satisfied

Jesus and his disciples had been in the car for over an hour. Peter's small car had every seat filled and a few of the guys had fallen asleep in the back seat as soon as they left Waycross, and they had been out ever since. Peter wished he weren't the one driving. They left in a hurry and didn't eat much of a dinner, so this late night drive was a mission in getting back to Jacksonville and getting some food as quickly as possible so everyone could go to bed.

It was almost 1:30am, so their options were getting fewer and fewer. McDonalds. Taco Bell. Maybe some other fast and cheap place with a drive-through that was still open. He just wanted to be asleep and not be thinking about food.

They passed through downtown. Union Street seemed to go for miles, but he knew they would be through this area pretty quickly. The streetlights lit up just enough of the sidewalk to show a few people walking around by themselves - some with bundles and bulky coats, despite the muggy night.

Peter glanced over at Jesus in the passenger seat. His eyes were wide and he was looking around attentively.

The light turned red at Main Street and Jesus unbuckled his seatbelt.

"You guys go find some food and come back to get me. There's something I need to do."

He opened the door and jogged across the street toward a gas station nearby, slowing to a meandering walk when he reached the edge of the parking lot. The light turned green, and Peter slowly pulled forward, keeping an eye on where Jesus was headed and noting the street names so he could find him again. After all the time Peter had spent with him, it still surprised him a little when he just took off by himself.

"Where did he go?" John said sleepily from the back seat.

"Who knows?" Peter replied. "Let's go get some food and we'll come back for him."

------

  

LaToya walked as slowly as she could. He was the laziest man she had ever known. She had to be up at 6:00 in the morning for work. Reggie could sleep all day and not be missed. So why was she the one walking 5 blocks in the middle of the night to go get his lazy ass more beer?

"He better watch himself," she said under her breath. "Don't he know I can do better than him?"

She walked through the empty gas station parking lot when she saw a man start to walk up toward her. "He better not ask me for money," she thought. "Everyone is always asking me for favors."

"Hey, would you grab me a bottle of water when you go inside?" he said to her.

"You seriously asking me for favors right now, cracker?" She snapped. "I don't know you."

She never broke stride, but as she passed by him, he said, "But if you did know me, you would have asked me to get you a drink, and I would have gotten you the best water you ever tasted."

She stopped and whipped around.

"You ain't got no money! That's why you're lurking around here askin' for favors. Some attitude you got. How you plan on buying anything when you don't have no money?!"

She realized she was overreacting and yelling at this bum for no reason, but she was already tired and irritated. Everyone keeps pushing her and demanding more from her.

"If you go in there," he said. "You'll buy a bottle of water and drink it tonight. But when you wake up tomorrow morning, you'll be thirsty again. You're always thirsty again no matter how much water you drink. But if you drink the water I have, then a river will start flowing from inside you so you'll never be thirsty again. You would live forever."

She laughed. This guy wasn't even worth her time to be mad at. As she turned around, she said over her shoulder, "Yeah, you go get me that magic water, big guy! Walking here is a pain in the ass so it would save me the trouble!"

"Go get your husband and come back," he said.

She stopped.

Something in her stomach turned and she felt sick. Some old bitter feeling made its way into her bones and her throat tightened.

"I ain't married," she said flatly.

"That's technically true," he said slowly. "In your entire life, you've had sex with 6 men, and the guy you're living with now isn't your husband either.

That number. She had never been honest about that number with anyone. There was one - the first one - she had tried impossibly to forget.

"Each man you're with, you think he's going to be the one to make you happy and satisfied. But every morning you wake up, and that old sadness and thirst are still there. You keep getting thirsty over and over again because the water you're drinking won't ever satisfy you, no matter how much of it you have."

"You talk like a preacher. I'm sick of hypocrites and liars tellin' me how I'm supposed to live and be good. If God is real, he sure ain't in no church."

"When you were in church, God was a stranger, so talking to him didn't make any sense to you. But God isn't interested in you being inside a church. He's interested in being inside that part of your chest where you keep your old sadness - that part of your heart where the thirst is. That's the only place where worship happens - not inside a church or on a mountaintop."

"If God wants that so badly, why doesn't he just come down here and introduce himself?" she said quietly.

"I just did," Jesus said.

-----

Peter turned the corner and saw the lights of the gas station ahead. They found a McDonalds a few blocks away and the guys in the back seat had already eaten most of their share.

Pulling into the parking lot, they saw Jesus standing near a dark corner of the parking lot, talking to a woman. The two were standing very close to each other and no one else was around. 

"What's he doing?" Philip said from the backseat. "This really doesn't look good." 

As they parked, the woman started backing up, still keeping her eyes on Jesus. Then she turned and ran in the opposite direction. The disciples got out of the car and Jesus walked up to them. Everyone waited to see if he would explain what he was doing, but he didn't say anything. He just leaned against the hood of the car and looked up at the night sky, smiling to himself. 

Peter and John exchanged looks, but neither of them would say anything. John grabbed the McDonalds bag and held the burger out to Jesus. Jesus didn't look away from the stars - he just hummed to himself and smiled. 

"We saved one for you," Peter said. "You should eat before it gets cold." 

"I already ate," Jesus said with a sly smile. 

John and Peter exchanged glances again, asking each other with their eyes if the other knew what he was talking about. Neither did. 

Jesus' eyes lit up as he looked at them both. "God gave me a job to do, and seeing it done fills me up! It's better than food to me!" He sprung forward and turned back to the disciples, teeming with energy. He seemed to be like a wild animal about to break out of a cage. 

"People say 'plant the seeds and wait for the right time.' But look around you!" He swung his arms and raised his voice. Peter and John looked around nervously. "The right time is right now! There are souls all around us ripe for the gospel, so why do we wait? Someone else planted the seed in their heart decades ago, and now it's ripe and we get to be the ones to bring in the harvest! Other people worked so hard to bring them this far - you and I are here right now to bring them home." 

As he was still talking, the woman returned and she had around her several confused, but eager and curious people. She pulled on the arm of a man and pointed at Jesus. 

"There he is! This guy told me everything I ever did! Everybody listen up!"

Jesus walked over to meet everyone, arms open. Peter smiled and shook his head. Turning to John, he said, "You know what this means, right?"

"I think it means we're going to be here a while," John replied. 

"Anywhere else you'd rather be?" Peter asked. 

"Not on your life," John answered. 

Writing Massive Checks

Imagine writing any check for any amount and knowing 100% that it’s going to cash every single time. Tell a child to think up the biggest number they can imagine, and then picture standing in the checkout line, seeing that number on the screen, and swiping your debit card, entering your pin, and knowing 100% that it’s going to go through because the funds are there.

It’s no surprise that there are people who emotionally fill us and people who emotionally drain us. Steven Covey talks about this in terms of relationship equity - that sometimes people make withdrawals and sometimes they make deposits into the relationship. He encourages you to make sure you have the relational equity with someone before making a withdrawal - that you’re not bankrupting those in your life.

Caroline and I were talking about grace this weekend and this topic came up. There are people you’ll interact with who will primarily make withdrawals - and not too many deposits. The obvious feeling around these people is to feel drained, spent, exhausted, and so on.

But here’s the thing: I’m a Christian, so I believe that I have been given grace by God and I’ve been asked to re-gift that grace to others. In a way, God gave me access to his checking account of grace and then told me to give as much away as I possibly could in my lifetime. When I write a check of grace to someone else, it always clears and it can’t make me feel drained because it’s not coming out of my account. If I feel drained, it’s because I’m trying to cover their withdrawal from the wrong account.

The next time someone slights you, cuts you off in traffic, insists on their way, doesn’t take your feelings into account, puts themselves first again and again, think about this. Imagine that action is them demanding grace - a lot of grace. Imagine taking out your checkbook, writing the entire sum they’ve asked for with no questions asked, and handing it to them, knowing that God has asked you to give away as much of this stuff as you possibly can in your lifetime, so this amount is fine.

Imagine that withdrawal is being taken out of oceans and oceans of grace that God has poured out for you, and that even if you tried every day of your life to giveaway as much grace as you could, his supply would still be brimming and overflowing off the edges of the world.

The withdrawal isn’t coming from your account. There is nothing to feel empty or drained about. He put you on his account and any check you write will clear. So give it freely and know that God has supplied far more than you will ever need - for you and for anyone you pass it on to.

Be an agent of grace, looking for any and every chance to write that check.