There is usually a pretty consistent pattern to my evangelism: The Good Person Test, the confirmation of guilt and judgment, and the Gospel. But there are plenty of times when the Lord "calls an audible." For my non-American-Football-fan readers, this means that He will prompt me to do something that I know how to do but wasn't planning to do and it works out a lot better than what I had planned.
Such was the case yesterday at Payless. I was purchasing socks (I think that God created menial tasks like buying clothes just to make sure we keep interacting with people He wants saved). One of the young ladies there made me want to hide my eyes. Fortunately, she was only around for a few seconds, and she wasn't the cashier.
That lady told me that the reason they were slow was that it wasn't time yet to get busy: come 6 PM, they would have no time to even restock, much less take it easy and chat. With that in mind, I decided that she was ripe for a diversion: the Good Person Test.
She agreed to take it. She was sobered when I told her that hating another makes one a murderer, but then she tried to justify it. She described the offense, and I understood. But then I asked her if she could forgive the person, if she asked her to.
"I could forgive, but I could never forget."
I have heard that many times. So I asked her to consider that Jesus had said that we would only be forgiven as much as we forgave others. I asked her to think about what God had done for us, becoming one of us to redeem us for our sins against Him, a process which involved--get this--being mistreated by us directly. So that He could forgive us all.
She had to admit that she had never considered that before.
The other girl had come up during our conversation, so she got to hear that part. She was on the far side behind the counter, so I didn't have to fight with my eyes about anything. I thanked God for that.
I urged the cashier to read the Word and take it more seriously. Then I bid them adieu, though I said it in English. =P
Thank you for your prayers.
No comments:
Post a Comment