Build God, Then We'll Talk by Nick Trussler

‘Build God, and then we’ll talk,’ he said. I didn’t know what he meant. So I went out and got a job. When I came back he asked me again, ‘Have you built God?’ I told him I built houses for a living. He shook his head. ‘When you have built the house of God then we’ll talk.’ So I waited for a year and managed to build a small chapel in my back garden. Well, it was really more of a converted shed.

I went back to him and said, ‘I have built a house of God, now can we talk?’

He shook his head again, ‘It is easier for a poor man to squeeze through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. To build God you must first have nothing.’

So I sold my house and all my possessions save for the clothes I was wearing and came back to him. ‘I have nothing, tell me how do I build God?’

‘To build God you must suffer with his people. Go out and suffer.’ And so I wandered the country for two years and I suffered; I suffered cold, hunger, thirst, heat and, surprisingly, chlamydia.

I returned three years to the day since I first spoke to the man. I was thin, I was ill, I was hungry, I was poor, I was tired, I was dirty. I said to him, ‘Now can we talk?’

He nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Now we can talk.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We have meetings Tuesday and Thursday evenings, with prayers and songs and coffee and biscuits to follow. Friday evening is film night where hot cocoa is served, but you will need to bring your own food. Is this something you would be interested in at all? He added, smiling, and passed me a leaflet.

Now I think about it, it was really quite a lot of an effort just to please a street preacher.