For the past 10 days we have been working with local churches reaching out to ethnic minorities. A main portion of our ministry has consisted of “tracting”. Now, if you dont know what I mean by that, think of those people standing on the side of the street passing out little leaflets of paper consisting of religious literature…you know, the ones you usually dont make eye contact with or you cross the street to avoid. Dont worry, that used to be my reaction too. So, when I found out this would be our main ministry, lets just say I was less than thrilled. But, God has been showing me a lot this month about what it means to truly “die to myself” and live for Him; and He wasnt going to let me learn it the easy way.
On our first morning of tracting I spent a lot of minutes in my quiet time arguing with God. I didnt understand how this method of reaching out to people actually worked, and even if it did I didnt want it to be my method. But, during that fist morning alone with God over and over again I felt Him asking me “who are you living for”? As I continued to ask this question to myself on our drive to ministry I finally realized in that moment, that my attitude had been so incredibly selfish. This is the ministry that God has called me to for the month of December, and even if I never tract again, I need to let go of my self and my opinions. God opened my eyes so much that first afternoon. I started to truly see people the way that He does. Every person that walked past me looked so lost. Sure they might have known what stores they were going to go to that day, or who they were meeting for lunch, but they had no idea that they are valued and loved by a heavenly Father who desires an eternal relationship with them. Even if they did avoid eye contact or walk on the other side of the sidewalk, I would always smile and tell them happy Christmas. The people who took the tracts had mixed reactions too. Some probably felt bad not taking it, others were just caught of guard and didnt know what was going on until they had this piece of paper in their hands and couldnt give it back, but every couple of people we got someone who was truly happy to have received what we were handing out (and when we were lucky, some people even came to us).
Though we spent a lot of time on the streets, conversations didnt come easy. But, God is good and the conversations I was fortunate enough to have were ones that I know He hand picked for me. I would be talking to someone and a question would come out that I would answer from a verse I had been thinking about days before, or I would have something randomly in common with the person in front of me. Though not all conversations flowed smoothly, I felt so loved by God when I was able to see how detailed and personal He was in directing what was being said.
I am not going to lie, the past 10 days were hard for me. I had moments of frustration and at times felt silly handing out tracts that I found to be somewhat cheesy. But, luckily my God can work through cheesy methods. My group alone handed out just under 4000 tracts this week. That means that almost 4000 people had the ability to read about the love of Christ. Im sure some got thrown away or forgotten about; but what about the ones that didnt? What about the people who actually read the tracts and thought about God, for even a second? The impact from those tracts is probably something I will never know, but I am going to believe that God works in all ways, and I am excited that I was able to help provide people with something that tells them about the God I love.
