Frightening Fridays (Week 2)

If you have been reading this blog regularly, you know that I have committed myself to spending one evening a week in intentional evangelism. I have decided to make that day Friday (evenings). I'm still working out the details on how to go about this.

This Friday my plans were rained out for the most part (not a lot of people wandering around in the rain). I was able to hand out several tracts but was not able to engage anyone face to face and share the gospel with them.

I did experience some rejection as well, just in handing out tracts. It's not unusual for a person to say "No. Thank you." when you're offering them a piece of paper and they don't know what that piece of paper contains (probably 25% of the people at any given time pass it up for that reason). When that happens, it is easy to shake it off. When the gospel is rejected because of its message, that is harder to recover from.

As I was waiting in line for a takeout order at a very busy restaurant, I handed out some optical illusion tracts to other people waiting alongside me (available at www.livingwaters.com). These tracts are very easy to hand out because they are interesting and make people curious. I handed out several of them and was working my way down a bench full of people waiting to be called to a table. I showed them the optical illusion part of the tract and then I told them they could keep them. I always tell people I am handing them a gospel tract, and there is a message on the back. As I reached the couple at the end of the bench (they looked to be roughly my age), the gentelman held up his hand and said, "No. We don't want that." I said, "Oh, did you already see it?" and he said, "It's the message on the back that we don't want." I smiled, said "okay", and moved on, but I was affected by it. My immediate reaction was to discontinue handing out tracts. I handed out more in the parking lot and later that evening but not without hesitation.

That experience caused me to examine myself and how easily I am defeated if operating out of my own human nature. It caused me to pray for a passion for lost souls and desire to share the gospel that is beyond anything I have on my own. I pray for a hunger to know God's Word and to know Him more. I also pray for more rejection that I will know how to handle it when it happens. I pray for a love for God and a love for others that compels me beyond my own fears.