Learned: When you obey, God does crazy things.
About 2
weeks ago John, Taniuska, Eryn, and I went to do “CardboardTestimonies” in downtown Brisbane.
A little while after we began, this high school guy and his friend came
up to Eryn and asked her if they could sit down on the sidewalk and just talk
for a while. She immediately said,
“Yes!” She knew that if they
wanted to sit, then that meant they were truly interested in what she had to
say and they would really listen.
The one that talked the most introduced himself as Lockland. They talked for about an hour, and over
the course of their conversation he told her that he was an atheist, but he listened very intensely to her as she answered his questions and told him
why she had decided to go on The World Race. Lockland is extremely intelligent and loves to study Science
and History, so Eryn challenged him to at least read the Bible as a History book to get him into the Word. She understands that God’s Word does not return void, and that it can speak for itself. (Side note: Eryn just
told us about all of these things when we met later. I wasn’t there during the
conversation and I just glanced over there every once in a while to make sure
she was still okay, but I didn’t really see what Lockland looked like.)
Fast-forward
2 weeks. It is the day before we
leave Australia to go to the Philippines and Taniuska and I decide to go for
one last run around Mitchelton (the town we stayed in). On our way back to the YWAM base we ran
through a park. Sitting under this
tree by the sidewalk that we were running on was this teenage guy sitting in
the shade with his backpack. As I
saw him, God told me, “Go talk to him.”
I am still working on immediate obedience…therefore my immediate
response was, “But God, I’m running right now.” Then God said, “You always have an excuse.” (Ouch…) So, I turned to Taniuska and said, “I
think I’m supposed to go talk to that guy.” I knew that if I told her, that I would not be able to
squirm my way out of it. She said,
“Well, do you want to turn around?” (It wasn’t really a question though.)
We ran the couple of
minutes back to this guy, and started a conversation with him. We started telling him about what we
were doing in Australia, and he said, “You have been doing the cardboard
testimonies, right?” He said that
he had talked to a girl with orange hair for a long time 2 weeks ago!! THIS WAS LOCKLAND, they guy that
Eryn had talked to 2 weeks before.
This was totally God appointed, and I could almost see the wheels in his
head turning. I can only imagine
that He was thinking, “Well, I’ve met these people twice in the past two weeks
and it wasn’t even close to being in the same area…is this more than coincidence?”(it was about 30 minutes away from
where Eryn talked to him before.) He is
still seeking, but we talked to him about Jesus, salvation, and how you are not
“born a Christian.” He once again
listened intently, and even allowed us to pray over him. I pray that Lockland sees these times that we met him
as God showing him how real He is and not just a weird coincidence!
