The beauty of being in missions is that as much as I intend on serving and pouring into others, what I truly encounter everyday is others who want to give me good things and help Jesus do heart work in me. A few days ago we sat down to do devotion with a local missionary from the states named Micah. The moment he sat down with us, there was something different about him. I didn’t know what it was but he had something for us. His story was entirely captivating.
As he spoke about his life, he talked about how he came from the streets, poverty, drugs, and how most of the Christians he knew were hypocrites. Then one day as he thought he was going on a drug run, he found himself being driven to a bible study. Then soon after he gave his life to God, he sought every opportunity to share the life changing power of God.
He mentioned preaching from the tops of trains in the city, and challenging unhealthy religious authorities to theological debates, and the guilt that came from being lead to speak to someone about Jesus, not doing it, and then they passed away with an unsaved soul. He was familiar with what it was to be in a life full of sin, to recognize that pain in the lives of others, and to live with an urgency to show them God in that place.
I was shaken by His story and how boldly and confidently he spoke about sharing his story and sharing Jesus with others. I realized that when it comes to being a disciple, there is a difference between being a learner and a doer. Micah is a doer. This is not to say that we are justified by our works, but in the words of Sanctus Real, “If you don’t have faith you have nothing at all, if you don’t have deeds your faith will fall”. I can speak about how I want to be radical and how I consider my life nothing—but I still fear rejection, I still fear judgment, I still fear isolation.
And I would be lying if I said these things don’t affect the extent to which I actually share Jesus with others. It is much easier to have a light conversation with strangers than to get right into the real stuff; the good stuff. It’s easier for me to justify to myself that listening and talking to them is enough. Don’t get me wrong, people need to speak their stories, and I need to listen. But if I don’t also tell them about Jesus, and they don’t know…was it just a really good conversation?
We did house visits and we spoke to a young single mom…silence. We played basketball with a bunch of teenage girls…silence. I have gained a friendship with two young beautiful girls named Hilary and Massiel…silence. I spent time with these people, the most valuable currency, but we both missed out on something because they didn’t know why I was there and we weren’t gathered in His name.
I want Micah’s urgency, I want his excitement. He is a mature man of God living with the urgency and excitement of a newly saved believer. I want to be there. I definitely love God more everyday since He saved mein , but it is eternally irresponsible for me to keep Jesus to myself. It’s easy to stay blind and sit complacently knowing I have my own relationship with God. Micah said something that has been on repeat in my brain, “once we meet God and know Christ, OTHERS become our purpose”.
It’s being in that place where you feel like you really need to tell someone about Jesus or share your story, and then the enemy uses justifications. “oh, it’s too soon”, “they will think I am selling them something”, “I don’t even know them”, “What if they reject me?”, “it will seem like a cheap cliché version”, “do I really know what I’m talking about well enough?”. And then you walk away with a lump in your throat, and Jesus in your head but not in their heart, knowing you’ve remained silent when you should have said something, when perhaps God meant to use that something to change their life. The few times that I have had the boldness to share my story with strangers, good fruit has come with it. Being truly vulnerable with others gives them permission to do the same with you.
A missionary here described it to me brilliantly, you can be eating a candy bar and describe how it tastes to someone using all the words in the world—but unless they taste it—they will never know how sweet it really is, how satisfying it is. Sharing personal stories about Jesus is like breaking off a small piece and offering it to them, until they get to taste a full candy bar for themselves.
“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle”, the flame doesn’t get smaller it just creates more light because it duplicates its flame. I think that boldness is the willingness to look foolish to the world until the world realizes its own foolishness the day that truth is revealed.
I don’t just want to learn about awesome disciples like Paul, or Philip, or Barnabas and get stuck in my bible. I want to be like Micah, transitioning from the fear of boldness, speaking, and sharing to a larger conviction that Jesus is too important to keep my story and my words behind closed lips.
