For the past couple of days as I am preparing for the World Race, I was praying Luke 10:2, “The Harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest”. I have been praying for an abundant harvest, that the the seeds that have been sown to come into fruition, and that I obey when the Lord tells me to speak. Since my fairly newfound boldness thanks to Acts 4:19, 2 Timothy 4:2, and Acts 4:29-30 (noted below), I have shared the Gospel a lot of people and I love it! However, it always seems that in regards to the people to whom I have spoken, I am a planter of the seeds, not so often a harvester. Both are important, of course; but I always yearn to have a chance to pray with someone when they accept Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour, to see him or her walk from darkness into Salvation, to see the impact of sharing my faith and testimony with my friends and acquaintances.
This isn’t coming from pride at all. I just want to be a witness of someone handing their life to Christ because it fills me with so much joy! The Lord does all of the work and He is the only one who can change a persons heart. My job as a believer is to walk out the life Christ has laid out and to tell of His story. So when I hear that I helped point someone to the Lord with this little light of mine, it is truly encouraging to know that I’m helping to do something with an eternal effect.
Even though according to the government I wasn’t supposed to (more on this in another post), I shared the Gospel and gave a Bible or “cookbook” to one of my Chinese co-workers a little less than a year ago. I had been holding on to this Chinese-English Bible for about 3 years, waiting until the Lord pointed out to whom it was supposed to belong. I ended up giving it, jointly with another dear friend of mine, A, to one of the Chinese-national teachers at my school. I’ll rename her Rory for privacy and safety sake. A and I would pass Rory on campus now and then, and we eventually made friends with her. She’s was just the sweetest! We would chat whenever we could, and recognized that we really needed to pour into her and just love on her.
So we did.
Our conversations always consisted of the usual topics of school, the students, what we were going to order for take out dinner, etc. But the conversations almost always turned to talking about Jesus. After praying for her and talking with her, A and I eventually felt led to give the Bible I held on to for so long to Rory. We each wrote a note filling the blank pages you typically find at the beginning of the book and secretly gifted it to her. She was so happy and thankful when she received it that she would actually carry it around the school in her arms… that is until I had to tell her to keep it a little more incognito due to China’s laws. I didn’t want to get her in trouble or me to get deported for giving it to her.
Things continued as normal for a while and we tried to keep up with each other around campus when we could, but then one day I realized I hadn’t seen Rory around for a while. As it turned out, she had found another job! So I hadn’t seen her in person since. We chatted a bit via text, but it’s been about seven months since we last spoke or saw each other. A and I never stopped praying for her and all the others we had spoken to.
I thank the Lord that He hears our prayers and that His Word never returns in void.
Rory messaged me today to tell me she had gotten baptized and that she now is a believer. She also thanked me for giving her the Bible. Let me tell you, that one WeChat text message made me cry literal tears of joy and thank the Lord for His goodness and His faithfulness. He never leaves the one behind.
I am absolutely overjoyed that another name has been added to the Book of Life! So much so that I don’t even know how end this blog post except by saying praise the Lord and keep going. Keep shining your light and being bold proclaimers of the Gospel of Christ! It’s a wonderful feeling and absolute blessing when someone you know has been snatched from the flames and grafted into the Family! God is Good!
God bless,
Julita xoxo
Acts 4:19 Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. NKJV
Acts 4:29-30 Now Lord look on their threats, and grant your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your Word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders may be done through the name of your Holy Servant Jesus. NKJV
2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word! Whether in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and teaching. NKJV
