The afternoon had presented its challenges. Our dog was sick, so we had to take him to the veterinarian. When filling up the car with gas on the way back into the city, the gas hose started spewing diesel unexpectedly, before pressing the handle, with some of the gas landing directly across my shoulders, on my face in my mouth. The printers for the coloring pages that we would take for the kids in the piazza wouldn’t work correctly, taking extra time to get prepared. And to top it all off, it was hot and I was sweating pretty heavily as I was running around preparing to go out to meet people. For a few minutes on my way over to the piazza, I will be honest and say that I’m not sure that I was really in the mood to be heading out to share the Gospel.

However, as we arrived to the piazza, I consciously thought to myself that in the past, some of these more challenging times have been some of the most fruitful times in conversations about Christ, so I tried to calm myself down in an effort to enter the next couple of hours in a right frame of mind.

As I walked into the piazza, I saw a man, “A” I will call him, who tells me that he is from “Romania”, but is clearly from Arab descent out of northern Africa. It is actually pretty easy to tell which country he is from, but so as to not reveal his identity, I won’t name the country. I had seen him before and chatted with him a few minutes previously, but today, I walked up to him and we started chatting pretty easily, almost like old friends.

After a while, though, he began to tell me that he is seeking meaning in his life. He explained that he had left his home when he was 9 years old. He had only a few memories of his father, but he explained a couple of things that his father had taught him about what his life should be about, the meaning of life according to his father.

But then he spoke about his life here in Catania from when he was 15 years old. He had been accused and convicted of rape and had spent six years in prison. He explained that, while he was angry about his situation while he was in prison, looking back, he sees that the prison walls that surrounded him were actually good for him because they prevented him from becoming even worse, from completely succombing to the spiritual darkness that surrounded him. He said that his prison forced him to confront himself and see himself for who he really was.

Now, though, while having understood who he was and rejecting that old person, he isn’t sure who he was truly made to be. The prison stopped him from becoming a worse person, but it didn’t teach him his true identity, nor his purpose in life. He knew that he couldn’t simply find his identity in making money or in the things of the world, but he really had no way to express what he was actually looking for.

We spoke about Jesus. We spoke about a new life in Christ and Christ’s desire to completely change his life. “A” said that he wanted this life, but he noted that any change in our life depends on the value of what you are changing it for. Wanting to leave him with an idea to consider, something to think about later, I told him Jesus’s parable about the kingdom of God being like a treasure in a field:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Matthew 13:44

I explained to “A” that Jesus emphasizes the point that obtaining the kingdom is worth it. In fact, it is worth all that we have. If we want to gain the kingdom of God, and we truly understand its value, then we will find ourselves ready to “sell” it all, to leave everything else behind, just so that we can have that treasure. The man in the field sold all that he had with joy. He was happy to sell everything – everything that he owned – so that he could go and buy that field that had the treasure. He knew the value of the treasure, so he sold everything that he had just so he could go back and buy it.

That is the value of the kingdom of God. It is worth it all.

At one point in the conversation, I asked “A” if there was anything that he could ask God for in this moment, what would it be. Without missing a beat… without even a moment’s hesitation, he said: I need forgiveness for what I have done. Please pray that God will forgive me for what I have done.

And so that is what we did right then and there.

We will need yet to see if “A” will be willing to “sell it all” to be able to obtain the kingdom. However, I will say that in nine years of living in Catania, I have never had a conversation as honest as that one with him. I have never had one that open, with someone having that much clarity about their need for God’s forgiveness for their own sin. Very often, the conversations are full of pride and a complete lack of any understanding that we have any spiritual needs whatsoever. However, “A” was different. He was repentant for what he had done, and he was humble in admitting that he was wrong and even now needed direction from God on the path for his life. We will meet again and continue this conversation, praying that God will continue to lead him to leave all of his past life behind and instead follow Christ, obtaining the treasure and entering the kingdom of God.