I was having a conversation with someone yesterday about “witnessing.” I’ve written about the 4 spiritual laws and the Roman Road and my feelings about these tactics before. I guess if they work for you that’s awesome. If it brings someone to a knowledge of Jesus, I’m all for it.
In this conversation we determined that some people are just more gifted in this area. I had a pastor one time that was like that. Every Sunday it seemed there’d be someone new sitting in the pew. It was someone he met at the post office or grocery store, or stood next to in line at McDonalds. He saw these routine activities as soul fishing trips. Being a Pentecostal pastor if he could, he’d get his new convert in his car before it was over and have you speaking in tongues. If not, by Sunday night service they were. It was his gift. It is not a gift I have.
Now some of you may feel that’s a cop out. Maybe it is, but I am uncharacteristic of the female gender, I don’t even like to ask for directions when I’m lost. Put me in front of a group of people and I’m fine. One-on-one, I can struggle.
I don’t struggle so much with this issue of witnessing or evangelism anymore. I’ve learned it is not so much what you say but how you live. It’s about the everyday mundane things of life. Jesus’ ministry was less about what He said but what He did. Even more important was the essence of who He is, His “being.”
This past summer I spent eight days living in a college dorm as I began my doctoral degree. Rather than Math or Science, we studied Personal Leadership. One of the phrases we pondered was “to be rather than to seem.”
I know some abrasive opinionated people. I’ve been tempted to shut them out of my life. At times I’ve thought, I don’t need this and ask myself, why bother? But then I think of the pain I know they’ve had in their life. I think of why they are abrasive. I decide and chose to love them. I get that same nudge that David talked about yesterday in his blog. That nudge of the Holy Spirit that says love them. And I do. I truly love them.
For me, that’s witnessing. For me, that’s how I share my life in Christ. I love. As I do, I see them as Jesus would see them. I see them as a fellow broken human being. I see their scars and still unhealed wounds. It humbles me and makes me love even more.
Whose wounds would Jesus have you touch? Who do you need to love like Jesus would love them?
Maybe I missed the topic completely, but that’s what’s on my heart this morning.
