When you are at a restaurant, you can expect to overhear conversations about what is good or not so good on the menu. When you are at church, you can expect to overhear conversations about how someone has been blessed or how you can pray for someone. When you are at a football game, you can expect to overhear conversations about how the defense is doing or what call the refs missed. What you don’t expect to overhear when you’re yelling “DEFENSE!” is someone nearby asking “Are you a Christian?” or “Do you know God loves you?”.
Wait. What? Who’d she just ask that? Or better yet. Why didn’t I think to ask that?
God has instructed us as Christians to “go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone.” (Mark 16:15). So I shouldn’t be surprised when nearly every conversation my daughter has with a stranger includes “Do you believe in God?” Instead I should be encouraged and challenged to do likewise. My dad exampled the same mission before me. “Go and make disciples of all the nations…”(Matthew 28:19). What would start as a simple “Hey there!” or “How’re you doing?” usually ended with “Do you know God as your Savior?” and “How can I pray for you today?”.
At a restaurant, at church, at a football game, in a grocery store, at the park, the setting didn’t matter. What mattered was that before walking away from the conversation a sharing of God’s love for that person happened. Too often I hang back and listen as people talk or I share a smile or a wave as I continue on my way to finish my to-do list, but there’s something more important than my to-do list. God has called us to a purpose - to go and share His love and salvation with others. May my conversations include His purpose. May I make another’s soul a priority to me and be the one who asks “Are you a Christian?”.
God has given each of us the greatest gift we could ever receive - salvation. May we each share His gift in the conversations we have with others.