I have been reminded again of how powerful prayer can be when we ask the Lord to help us witness well to the not-yet-Christians in our lives. On my way down to Winchester on Tuesday (my home-town, where parents and lots of old school friends live) I sat on the train and prayed that God would lead my conversations and that I would be able to speak to them about how Jesus has completely transformed my life!
I ended up in this amazing conversation about faith and Jesus to one of my best mates Tim in the pub until about midnight (a late night indeed for a softie like me!) and he was just firing questions at me about Jesus, faith, thinking with your heart as well as your head, how the old and new testaments relate to each other, and so on. I walked home completely buzzing!
John Ortberg talks about how, sometimes, our role is just to take someone from -4 to -3 on the scale, and that it may not be us that gets to 'reap' that particular harvest. I really got a sense of how, over the last few years, little snippets of conversation have taken Tim from a place of complete misunderstanding of faith (where I was, years ago!) to a growing interest and engagement in it. He seems to have Christians all around him in his life (football teams, on his Masters course, etc.) and he bought Alison Morgan's 'What happens when we die' following a conversation we had while watching a rugby match while on a friend's stag-do! So, I don't know when or if he will choose to give his life to Christ, but I know that God is at work in him and that God will use my conversations with him.
I think that conversation is one thing, but the most important thing is that we continually lift this person to God in prayer and ask that, by His Holy Spirit, He will continue to stir and bring on our person of peace. I'm going to use my lunchtime alarm as a reminder to pray for Tim every day, along with my other people of peace.
Thank you God for the way you are always at work in our lives, whether we know you as Lord or not!
No comments:
Post a Comment