God's Chair

A man's daughter had asked the local pastor to come and pray with her father. When the pastor arrived, he found the man lying in bed his head propped up on two pillows and an empty chair beside his bed. The pastor assumed that the old fellow had been informed of his visit. 

"I guess you were expecting me," he said.

"No, who are you?" 

"I'm the new associate pastor at your local church,"  the pastor replied. "When I saw the empty  chair, I figured you knew I was going to show up." 

"Oh yeah, the chair," said the bedridden man.  "Would you mind closing the door?" 

Puzzled, the pastor shut the door. 

"I've never told anyone this, not even my daughter," said the man. 

"But all of my life I have never known how to pray. At church I used to hear the pastor talk about prayer, but it always went right over  my head. I abandoned any attempt at prayer," the old man continued, "until one day about four years ago my best friend said  to me, 'Joe, prayer is just a simple matter of  having a conversation with Jesus. Here's what I suggest: Sit down  on a chair; place an empty chair in front of you, and in faith see Jesus on the chair. It's not spooky because he promised, 'I'll be  with you always.' Then just speak to him and listen in  the  same way you're doing with me right  now.'  So, I tried it and I've liked it so much that I do it a couple of hours every day.  I'm careful, though. If my daughter saw me talking to an empty chair,  she'd either have a nervous breakdown or send me to off to the  funny farm." 

The pastor was deeply moved by the story and  encouraged the old guy to continue on the journey. Then he prayed with him, and returned to the church. 

Two nights later the daughter called to tell the pastor that her daddy had died that afternoon. 

"Did he seem to die in peace?" he asked. 

"Yes, when I left the house around two o'clock, he called me over to his bedside, told me one of his jokes, and kissed me on the cheek. When I got back from the store an hour later, I found him dead. But there was something strange, in fact, beyond strange... really weird. Apparently, just before Daddy died, he leaned over and rested his head on a chair beside the bed."