doing life with others and sharing the love of Jesus

If you attend a church service, you hear the term ministry thrown around all the time.  At my church, there are some amazing ministries that people I know and love have and/or participate in.  This one sweet lady gives bibles away to people.  She keeps them in her car and readily hands them out.  Another friend goes and visits people in the hospital and makes sure they know where they're going when they die.  I have a young friend who lives in North Memphis and has foster kids come and go, plus all the neighborhood teenagers.  She provides snacks and bible study.  Others I know go on mission trips often. 

And if you're anything like me, that all sounds so good, but it also seems a tiny bit overwhelming.  I always wonder, what can I do?  I'm a stay at home mom.  I homeschool my kids, which means I don't go to all these places where I can really focus on sharing Jesus with others.  I go to church, I see my (believing) friends, I am always around family or friends. 

And yes, I often fall into the horrible comparison trap.  It's hard not to when you hear all these cool stories of what other people are doing.  And if I'm completely honest here, which I say that I am real and open all the time, I do not have the spiritual gift of evangelizing.  It's not my gifting, but to an extent, we're all called to do all the spiritual gifts at some point.  When it's your gift, though, it just easily flows and is almost supernatural, it can be made to look so easy.  (I'm thinking of two people who have this gift, as I write this.  One is a young man at our church, and the other is our missions pastor.)  So for someone like me, who does not have that gift, it's hard for me to start up a conversation where I can share with them the gospel. 

Sometimes I feel a twinge of something about this, but I'm not sure if it's conviction or shame.  Conviction is good and from the Lord.  But shame is NOT from the Lord.  He will never make us feel ashamed of something we've done, or not done. 

Does anyone besides me ever feel this way? 

I always pray about this, and I always ask the Lord to use me as I go about my daily life.  When I prayed this on Monday (for the umpteenth time), He gently reminded me of a couple of things, and I wonder if anyone else needs to be reminded of something similar as well? 

One is that sharing the love of Jesus with others looks different for different people.  For me, a non-evangelizing type person, it can look like encouragement.  I love to talk to people when I go places.  (Costco, Kroger, Annie's nails, the hair salon.)  Exhortation (often called encouragement) is one of the spiritual gifts, and it is in my top five.  I am a very quiet, reserved, introverted person, but for some reason, I love meeting new people and striking up a conversation.  Sometimes they don't want to talk back to me, though, so I make sure and make eye contact, smile, maybe offer a helping hand, and then sometimes if we're in line and they don't want to talk, I will pray for them silently.  I do this with the people checking me out, as well, because sometimes you just cannot get one word out of them.

About this gift of exhortation, it doesn't JUST mean encouragement.  It also means that if I have a friend who I can see struggling with a particular pattern that could be harmful (like being too busy, or gossipy), I know that I need to say something.  This gift goes both ways, and I have to both.  (I only do this with people who either ask me for advice, or ones I'm close enough with to be able to speak my mind lovingly.) 

Also, about this particular spiritual gift, the Lord showed me a long time ago, that I need to always look the part of someone who would love to be approached.  For instance, I tell students (and my own boys) all the time that when the Lord so drastically changed me all those years ago, He changed my countenance.  I used to walk around looking mad all the time, before, I had someone tell me that.  So I asked Him to change me.  And now?  My "resting face" is one that looks like I'm smiling.  I'm not always, I promise, it's just another piece of evidence of how the Lord transformed me.

I had an incident happen on Monday while I was getting my nails done.  (Real life, hello.)  I love the place I go to, and I love those dear people who work there.  I talk to them all the time, but sometimes the owner isn't as friendly with a new customer as one would like her to be.  A lady next to me was asking her all kinds of questions about colors (I love nail polish and naming all the OPI colors is my super power), and I was able to help her a little, when the owner wasn't answering.  That one small statement I made struck up a twenty minute conversation between us.  Her name was Lisa, and she and her husband moved here from Dallas for his job, but their grown daughters live in California.  She asked me questions like what was there to do here (not much, unfortunately) and why I had this certain look about me.  She was super kind and said something about how I seemed to be glowing.  As sweet as that was, it was a tiny bit embarrassing, but I thanked her for her kindness and said, "Well, hopefully, you're seeing the love of Jesus that is within me."  And I invited her to church. 

Friends, that is one small way that the Lord used me this week, and normally I wouldn't think that was a big deal, but He reminded me that He gave me that opportunity and I could have just brushed it off, but instead, I talked about Him. 

(Please don't take this as me being boastful...I promise, I am only boasting in the Lord and His goodness.  He gave me brevity I usually don't have, and He directly answered a prayer for me that day, because I had asked Him to use me.  I pray this everyday, and most times I do not see an answer like I did on Monday, but I know He hears, and I trust that He is always at work within me.)

The second thing He reminded me of was the gift of prayer.  (Remember yesterday's post about how I sometimes am so tempted to skim over that part of my quiet time?  That is the enemy trying to weasel his way into my life and way of thinking.)  Well, I love to pray.  The Lord has used several people in real life who have taught me on this subject.  One is my friend Denise.  She loves to pray and encouraged me to get a prayer partner and to meet weekly with her.  I did that a few years ago, and though Abbey and I haven't been super consistent since last summer, we are on a three week streak of meeting again, and I am so glad. 

Another lady who taught me on this was Denise's friend Ann.  Ann taught me that praying for myself is also crucial.  It's like the airline stewards who tell you to use oxygen first for yourself, and then go and help others, if the plane is in distress.  If I don't pray for myself and my own heart and junk I often have going on, I'm not sure if anybody else will.  Also, I don't always tell other people my junk, so if I didn't pray for that, I know nobody else would. 

I used to keep a prayer notebook and I would use it almost everyday.  I do still use that every once in a while, but sometimes it seems too overwhelming, and I don't always have a whole hour to spend in prayer.  When I don't use that, I pray according to the acronym ACTS: adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.  Thank you, Jason Holmes, for that.  He's our student ministry pastor.  The people who know me are good about reaching out to me for prayer, so when they do, I usually stop right then and pray.  If I don't, I'll forget.  I text them prayers, sometimes, like I did with a friend on Monday night, and sometimes I will call them and pray over the phone, because I don't know what else to say or do for them when times are so hard.  When you ask me to pray and I say I will, I promise that I am true to my word.  I usually will write it all down in my journal so that I won't forget.

I wanted to share this, because I know there are other people like me, who wonder what they can do, when it comes to sharing your faith.  These are just a couple of really practical ways that are easy, and that the Lord showed me this week.  I pray that these words are an encouragement to you as you go about your daily life.  There is nothing too small that you can do to make an eternal impact in someone's life, if you're a believer and follower of Jesus like me.  Don't let the enemy try to get you to think any other way. 

Thanks for reading, friends.  Love to all. 

(About that picture at the top: sometimes displaying all the fruits of the Spirit are what others see in us, as well.  All those things represent Jesus, and if that evidence of His presence in our lives is missing, I believe that it would make one wonder about our salvation.  The way we act can be a stumbling block for someone who is not a believer and follower of Jesus.  So, that's just one more thing to think about, and it's one other way I pray, for the Lord to display ALL those qualities in me as I go about daily life.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self control.)