So as I was trying to figure out what to blog about this week, I had some serious writer’s block. This hadn’t really happened to me before. I have grown to love blogging and usually have so much to say. But this time nothing was coming. I stared at my blank doc for a while, struggled through a couple random sentences, and then just closed my laptop in frustration.
Then I had this crazy thought to ask God what He wanted me to share (usually a pretty good idea). He revealed the following to me to share with you all:
The other day I was out on a feeding where we went into the community to offer food and prayer to the people. As my teammate, Holly, and I were walking around, we came across a little boy who couldn’t have been older than 2. He was playing in a pile of trash and it broke my heart. I brought a book of stickers with me on the race so that I could hand them out to the children I met. I felt like I was supposed to go to this precious little boy and see if he wanted a sticker. So I did.
As I walked over to the boy, I started showing him the book of stickers. He was pretty unsure about it, so I went ahead and peeled off a sticker which I placed in his hand. He was holding a plastic spoon which was suddenly thrown in my face. I can’t say I was expecting it, but honestly, I didn’t think too much about it. I just kinda laughed it off, sent a prayer his way, and moved on.
We continued walking for a while, then we passed by the little boy on our way back. In the time since we had left him, he had taken the sticker off of his hand and put it on his cheek. He was smiling and giggling and really seemed to be enjoying himself with his new, shiny sticker.
Through this experience, God taught me a lesson.
As Christians, we are going to face rejection often. We have this incredible gift of Jesus Christ that we want to give to everyone. We know that this gift will completely change the course of their lives, and the awesome thing is that it’s free! But so often when we share this with unbelievers, their common reaction is to reject it or throw a spoon in our face. This new thing looks all shiny and fun, but they have been hurt too many times before to actually believe this “gift” is as free and amazing as we promise. It’s hard to be rejected because we know what a difference it could make if they did accept that gift.
You may be rejected at first. But you never know the lasting impact of what you share with someone. Had we not walked past that little boy on the way back, I would have never known that he did grow to accept the sticker and be happy because of it.
You may never see the fruit of a seed that you plant, but an eternity can still be changed because of it.
The amazing part is when we do get to see unbelievers accept this gift when they finally embrace all that is being offered to them and run with it full-forced into what God has planned for their lives.
People will never get to accept that gift if it is never offered to them. It is always worth the possibility of rejection to have lives changed forever.
You don’t have to be on a missions trip to hand out stickers.
