I got the text last Friday. One of my girlfriends invited me to happy hour at a local restaurant. I had just gotten home from work and it had been a doozy of a day. So I texted her back and told her I would be there in a little.

When I got there I realized another one of my friends had joined her and she had brought a guy friend along also. In addition to that, there were two people at the end of the table that I had never seen.

Soon the strangers introduced themselves and then they started to talk about the times they had gotten drunk. I felt sorry for them because that is not much of a life if you have to regale others with that kind of story.

The strangers left the table soon after I arrived and when they left I was told that the lady was a stripper and the man supposedly helped support her financially.

My girlfriends were glad they left and I didn’t mind them leaving either. I wish when they left the table they had left my mind but they didn’t. They kept coming back into my thoughts.

This morning I thought of them again as I was getting dressed for church and I realized that I hadn’t done what Jesus would have done. I hadn’t told them a way to escape the cage of sin they were in.

I argued with God. I hadn’t known the girl was a stripper until they had already left. I didn’t know how much she needed to know Jesus. Yet the reality set in that I would have acted worse if I had known she was a stripper.

When I reflect on the life of Jesus, God’s own Son, I see a young man who was so comfortable in his own righteousness that He had no problem hanging out with sinners. It was those self-righteous Pharisees and Sadducees that he detested.

I struggle to become comfortable in the presence of people who are clearly sinning, yet they are the ones who are lost. If I am truly Christian, am I not to be concerned about their eternal destination?

I missed my chance with these two. Their memory haunts me. I pray for them every time I think of them. I pray they meet someone who is a better Christian than I.