Jesus Talk

I had an interesting experience last week that I wanted to share. I was out traveling with a gentleman on Wednesday. For those of you who don't know, I'm a Sales Engineer, and I periodically travel with individuals from the companies I represent. I don't directly work for these people, but it's in my best interest to keep them happy. This particular man is an area representative of mine that lives in New York. We were in my car, when he noticed a CD of "The Purpose Driven Life," sitting in my console. He asked if this was some kind of motivation book or something. I told him that it was, and attempted to keep my response from getting too churchy. I feel pretty bad saying that, but it's an unspoken rule in this business that you should always steer the conversation away from politics and religion. I thought that my generic answer would kill the conversation, but he asked more questions on what it was about. I eventually got around to telling him that it basically revolves around the notion that our whole lives should be devoted only to glorifying God. I thought that by this time, if I came out and said something like this, he would probably clam up and end the conversation; I was mistaken. He went on to tell me that he thought that just by appreciating his family and what he had, that this was glorifying God. I answered his question by saying that what he said was correct, but it's only a start, and that God wants us to praise and worship him constantly.

He began talking about his Catholicism. He said that he wasn't really "religious," but basically went to a Catholic church because his wife was raised that way and he wanted to keep her happy. He didn't like the ritualistic parts of the service, and so they didn't go much. Up to this point I had been struggling with doing what was right (diving in head first and witnessing to this man) and trying not to step out of my confort zone. I had attempted to change the conversation so many times just because I was uncomfortable with the idea of witnessing to him, and all the while, God was giving me opportunity after opportunity to engage this guy who was obviously as lost as an Easter egg. When he had made that last statement, I could only think of the two daughters I knew that he had, 8 and 9 years old. I was thinking that they would continue to grow up in a house with no talk of God or Jesus, and no spiritual leader. With that, I finally told him that I wasn't "religious" either, I just love Jesus. I explained to him that loving, worshipping, and following God had nothing to do with religion, but everything to do with your heart.

After some more talk, he stated that he believed in just trying to be a good person. That was my opening; I told him that while that's a great goal, the cool thing about God is that we can't be good enough, and that it doesn't matter. He'll take us in anyway if we just make a decision to live for him.
I wish I could say that this guy prayed with me to accept Christ, but it didn't happen that way. What did happen was that a seed was planted that may grow in this man one day. By the end of the day, he was discussing some of the Christian songs that he had heard and liked. I suppose the biggest impact on me was learning that I don't have to be uncomfortable to share my faith. It doesn't have to be a difficult experience. After all this guy was much more comfortable than I was discussing it, because he was the one that kept bringing it up.

God moved in my heart that day, and I feel like he is really working on me to shed my discomfort and tentativeness with witnessing. My goal from now on is that if people don't want to hear about Jesus, they should stay away from me. Because I'm going to keep talking...

-Patrick

God Moving

It's late, so I won't post much now, but I definitely have a lot to talk about. I'm very excited about our group and the direction that things are going. We're growing slowly in numbers and picking up steam with our meetings and activities. I feel that as a Church, we're heading in the right direction. I feel like we're humming along in the direction that God would have us to go. I know that He has been preparing us for something, by the way that our meetings, sermons, Sunday school lessons, revivals, and talks have gone. Everything seems to be pointing us in a common direction. That is to die daily to ourselves so that we may live for him. God has been moving in exciting ways in my life, and change is coming slow, but I know that the power to changes our lives comes through faith in God. He's always moving in our lives, we just need to try our best to move in the same direction. More to come later....

-Patrick