I'm aware last week's post was a little on the down side. I truly have a much more positive outlook this week...my exams are over, I'm back at work and just generally looking forward to summer and looking forward to moving to Spain!
I just wanted to tell a little story. As the title of this post suggests, the story is one that encouraged me. Basically, yesterday someone told me that becoming a Christian changed their life and was a defining point in their making a career change into a career they'd always wanted but thought might be out of their reach or too stressful.
To be fair, it's not that unusual for someone to tell me that becoming a Christian changed their life. God changes a lot of lives and I know many people whose lives have been changed even quite dramatically by meeting Jesus. What was unusual in this case was that I had only just met this person and (unless God told them) they didn't know that I was a Christian. The comment he made was completely within the context of our discussion, simple and very honest.
I really felt for him in that moment because I know, for me, when the opportunity comes to share something like that there's so many mixed feelings - I'm excited, I'm praying silently, wordlessly, that I won't mess up, I'm nervous and often tongue-tied. I often feel very vulnerable in that moment because I have seen the times when the glaze comes over people's eyes or they don't want to speak to you anymore. That doesn't make me not want to share, but it does make me nervous and very aware that I just have to trust in God to look out for me.
But at the same time, I was encouraged. I still love to meet other Christians because it doesn't happen to me all that often outside of churches or church-related events. I was also encouraged just to see someone quietly sharing their faith - witnessing to the change God had made in their life and glorifying God when they could have easily left Him out of the story.
I'm praying that God will continue to work in me so that I can witness effectively to people I meet. At the moment I am praying about witnessing, rather than evangelism, because to me, witnessing is more about saying "I saw God do this" whereas evangelism is more specifically about sharing the Gospel with people. Both are great things to do and I do want to do both. Today though, I'm thinking about witnessing, and how I can share what I've seen and experienced God doing with christians and non-christians alike, to the glory of God. I don't have the answers, but I'm trusting that God will, bit-by-bit, build me up in this area.
1 comment:
It's a great prayer to have Bek. The call to witness is something we are all to do - evangelism is something gifted to people but we're all called to witness so a prayer that we may witness effectively is an awesome one.
Going back to your story - A while back Sian and I were on a tram home from Meadowhall and I overheard a few guys, late teens probably, just chatting about their faith, Christ, the Bible and so on. I remember thinking how great it was to hear that kind of conversation in the midst of the noise around us. Kind of bringing the extraordinary of God in to the ordinary of our lives (was that super cliche?!)
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