Tag: risk-taking

A Different Kind of Evangelism

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…

1 Peter 3:15

I drove up to Pennsylvania by myself to go to a conference meant for pastors. On one of the dinner breaks I didn’t have anyone to eat with, so I went to a local pub that had outdoor seating and good online reviews. Sometimes when I am eating alone in a restaurant or sitting alone on an airplane I use it as an opportunity to stretch my wings and take a risk. I try to practice using some of the gifts of the Spirit for the sake of sharing the gospel.

I ordered my food and then asked the Lord for a word for anyone around me or the waitress. I didn’t get anything at first as my mind was distracted by the sports bar environment. Sometimes, if I ask the Lord for a word and don’t get one, I just let it be. But in this case I pressed in and asked again, trying to focus my heart on how God saw my waitress.

As I prayed I heard the phrase, “hurting sister” in my mind. I pressed in again and asked for another word. In my mind I heard the word, “genuine.” Things were flowing now so I asked again for anything else the Lord wanted to share with me. Finally, I heard the word, “diploma.”

That’s it! Now I was left to prayerfully interpret what I heard. I’m not an expert at this, but here’s what I did. When the waitress (her name was Caroline) came back to check on me, I engaged in a conversation that went something like this:

Me: Hey, can I ask you a question? Do you have a sister?

Caroline: Um, yeah.

Me: Okay, let me tell you why I asked. Sometimes the Lord will give me a word for people and, while I was sitting here, He gave me some words for you. I basically asked Him how He saw you. Do you want to hear what He said to me?

Caroline: (looking a little confused and unsure) Um, I guess so.

Me: Well, first I heard the phrase “hurting sister.” Is your sister going through something hard right now?

Caroline: No. Not that I know of. I mean, she’s a mom with two little kids at home so maybe that’s something hard.

Me: Oh okay. Well, maybe she’s going through something or maybe I just missed it. Sometimes I just miss it and mishear what God is telling me. The other thing I heard was the word, “genuine.” I feel like God is saying that you are a very genuine person, you don’t like to be fake with people. Is that something you’d say is true of you?

Caroline: (a bit more surprised and open now) Yes, actually. That describes me really well. My friends are always saying that about me. I just like to be real with people, and I don’t like it when people are fake.

Me: Okay, yeah. I think God loves that about you. (Caroline smiles) And the last word I got was the word “diploma.” Are you thinking about getting a degree or something in school?

Caroline: Oh, man. Well, I probably have enough degrees, but I have been thinking about getting this certificate that would help me change jobs. I’m an elementary school teacher in Harrisburg. I teach the third grade. But I want to be a resource specialist that helps schools with technology. To do that I need to go back to school to get this certificate. And I’ve been debating whether I should do that.

Me: Awesome. I think you should go for it! My wife was a high school teacher for years and now teaches in a university setting.

Caroline: Yeah, these kids in the city have it rough. Teaching there is really hard.

Me: Yeah, as a blond hair, blue-eyed girl my wife was the minority in both schools she taught in. I remember her talking about some of her students getting recruited into gangs.

Caroline: Yeah, it even starts in elementary school. It’s so hard to watch it happen.

Me: Well, I think God loves your heart for those kids and loves your desire to make things better in those schools.

Caroline: (with a big smile) Well, thanks so much! I have to go help that table over there, but thank you for saying that.

Me: Absolutely!

You can probably notice the progression in this conversation. My goal was not to get her to “pray a prayer” or “accept Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior” right there at work. My goal was to let her know, through a few prophetic words, that she is known, seen, and loved by God. That’s it. Seeds were planted that will potentially cause her to doubt her doubts. And while she was hesitant to engage with me at first, the more accurate the words got, the more she opened up.

The final thing I did to make sure I left her feeling the love of God was to tip her the amount of my meal. So rather than doing a 20% tip, I did 100%. I did this because Christians have gotten a bad reputation for leaving gospel tracts with waiters with very little tip. I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to bless her not only with prophetic words but also financially. Again, my goal was to reflect the love of God and leave an impression that would be hard to forget.

As I drove away from the pub that night, I prayed that Caroline would contact her sister and ask if she was okay. And if I heard the Lord correctly, maybe her sister would open up about a current struggle she’s going through. And if she did, Caroline would remember the prophetic word she got at work. Maybe she would be hit with how much God knows and loves her. That was my prayer.

This is something you can do too if you are willing to take a risk, practice the prophetic, and be willing to admit when you get it wrong. It’s not easy, but the payoff is worth it. Jesus is worth it.

Hunting on the Frontier

I went with my oldest son out to west Texas on a hunting trip. It was our first. The purpose of the trip was to celebrate my son’s graduation from elementary school and entrance into the preteen years. It was a coming-of-age trip. While there, we had a morning hunt and an evening hunt each day. We awoke at 5:45am to get to the deer stands before first light. In the evenings we were at the stands before sundown. This means for four days we saw every sunrise and every sunset on the west Texas horizon. It was amazing.

One lesson I learned from this experience was that frontier living is different than living in the comforts of home. What might feel “extreme” back home is a necessity out there. For instance, all the hunting gear seems unnecessary when you are purchasing it back home. But when you are sitting in 27 degree weather for two hours, in the dark, before the sun rises, you discover the true purpose of all that gear.

One might think, “Why do we need boots and hunting pants? Won’t shoes and normal pants be sufficient?” And the answer is, “No.” But you don’t realize it until you’re hiking through west Texas terrain full of spikes, thorns, and cactus. It’s not a walk in the woods out there. On the frontier, everything is trying to sting you, stick you, or bite you. Boots and hunting pants protect you from constantly being stuck.

And who really needs a sidearm when you have a rifle? It seems like overkill produced by gun-happy NRA advocates. It seems excessive back home. But it’s not out there. There are mountain lions and black bear that roam the same area as the deer. When you are hiking through the dark to and from a deer stand, it’s difficult to have a rifle ready if you were to be attacked. A sidearm protects you from these predators. On our trip we saw a momma black bear and her cub getting into one of the corn feeders. We had to go chase it off and shoot guns in the air to scare it. The danger from these animals is real out there and the need for a sidearm is equally real.

Likewise, cruising around the Target parking lot does not exactly demand 4-wheel drive vehicles. But out on the frontier, 4-wheel drive vehicles are the only ones that will make it over the rocky mountain roads. On the way to the hunting lease, one goes from highway (70 mph), to gravel roads made of caliche (25 mph), to rocky trails (5 mph). Having a 4-wheel drive vehicle is not an attempt to flaunt ego, it is an absolute necessity for getting anywhere.

I saw this pattern over and over again. What seems excessive back in the comfort of suburban life was needed for survival in the terrain of the frontier of west Texas. And it got me thinking about how this is true in the Christian faith. If you dare to live on the frontier of faith, entering the untamed wilds of the kingdom of darkness in order to bring about the Kingdom of God, you will do things, say things, and live in a way that seem extreme to those satisfied to stay in their comfort zone of faith. If you want to plunder the kingdom of darkness, one must be willing to live in the borderlands, the badlands, where extreme faith, radical power, and pioneering risk-taking are not the exception but the rule. What seems like extreme faith is really just faith on the frontier. What seems like extreme obedience is really just obedience on the frontier. They are what is necessary to live, survive, and thrive.