Vanishing Fears
I can’t do this,” I whispered to the pastor leading the teams of people going out to share the gospel.
“Of course, you can,” he said in a matter-of-fact way.
He doesn’t get it, I thought. He doesn’t understand that I am really afraid to knock on the doors of perfect strangers and ask them about God.
I had been in a witnessing program at my church for several months and had overcome my initial fear of calling on church visitors.
These people were predisposed to talk about spiritual things. They had attended a worship service and signed a visitor’s card.
But now we were to go out and knock on doors in apartment buildings near the church and ask the residents to answer some questions about their belief in God.
“It isn’t you doing this anyway,” the pastor said to me. “You know it is the power of God in you.”
It sure didn’t feel like the power of God was anywhere near me as
I headed out the door with two visiting pastors. They were attending a training program at our church to see how laypeople could learn to share effectively their faith and lead others to Christ.
I didn’t reveal my misgivings to them but offered up a fervent, silent prayer for the courage I really couldn’t feel.
I agreed with Paul in Romans 1:16 when he said that he was not ashamed of the gospel.
I could also affirm that the gospel has the power to bring salvation to those who believe it. But it seemed impossible that I could express God’s power in any meaningful way.
No one answered our knocking at the first few doors, but then a middle-aged woman invited us in. She told us that she had attended church all of her life, so I was certain that we would have nothing new to share.
As I started to talk with her about her understanding of who Jesus is and what he did, my fear began to disappear. She was interested and eager to talk about a new faith that wasn’t based on her good deeds in order to please God.
An hour or so later she prayed and invited Jesus into her life. All of us—the woman, the two pastors, and I—were excited to be present when the power of the gospel transformed the thinking of this dear lady.
On another occasion, I was part of a group of Christians who went out on the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale to talk to college kids from all over the United States who had descended on South Florida for spring break.
I began talking with one young man who listened to me for a few minutes and then said, “You couldn’t possibly understand why I hate God.”
“Try me,” I responded.
He went on to tell me that his fiancee was killed the previous Christmas when a motorist drove up on a curb and ran over her.
It was amazing to me as I listened to him to think that, of all the people on the beach, God had led me to this young man.
I went on to tell him how my own husband had been killed just ten days before Christmas two years before.
He was very interested in how I could love God in spite of what happened. When we parted ways, he said he was willing to think more about God and pray that God would change him.
I witnessed so many encounters similar to these over the years where people’s hearts and minds were changed.
It was especially obvious to me that the power came from God and not any persuasive words from me. When God is at work, information one has learned in a classroom becomes infused with supernatural meaning. And anyone can be God’s tool of salvation!
Father, thank you that you choose to use us as vessels through which your Holy Spirit works.