As followers
of Christ, part of our mission here on earth is to share the Good News and
point people to God. It’s good to take
that charge seriously because I believe there are many people, like myself, who
are lost without Jesus and whose lives can be dramatically altered for the
better by knowing Him. However, I think there can come a point where that
valuable time spent building into someone can become wasted time.
Over several
years, I had spiritual conversations with people I met at work who seemed
interested in hearing more about Christ. Whether it was a one-time conversation or going
so far as to ‘sponsor’ them in structured RCIA classes (Rite of Christian
Initiation for Adults) I would find myself overly excited to share with them my
personal faith story and how they, too could experience a peace that surpasses
all understanding, anxious about the prospect of them making the choice to
follow Christ. More often than not, I found
myself waiting, hoping, and praying for them only to have them lose interest.
What did I do wrong? Did my persistence
and excitement have the opposite affect and drive them off? Perhaps it’s as Jesus says in the Gospel of
Luke, “And for those who do not welcome you, when you leave
that town, shake the dust form your feet….” (Luke 9:1-6)
I’ve realized through these experiences that sometimes we’re just called to sow the seed. God will water it and grow it on His own time. We didn’t fail; we did our job by loving that person and planting with them the good news. If we let Him, God will use us to change other lives. And who knows? That person we were building into may return to the memory of our sharing with them, praying for them, or leading them to Christ later when they’re in the lows of life. We pray not that God would use us to change one life, but that He would use us to impact many.
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