Facing the Giants. That’s the theme of this week for us in Ocean City. Facing and conquering the giants of fear in our lives that prevent us from living fully and radically for the gospel. On Saturday night each one of us reflected on what we’re most afraid of in evangelism and made goals for attacking those fears. For many people, their ‘giant’ so to speak is sharing the gospel with specific family members. For others it’s sharing with people of a different ethnicity, a large group of people, co-workers, friends from home, and many more. Our goal this week is to break down that giant of fear. In addition, we each set a number goal for how many spiritual and gospel conversations we want to have by the end of the week. The group’s collective goal is to have 4,271 conversations by Saturday night. Personally, my goal was to lead 30 spiritual conversations on the boardwalk and at work. I’m almost at my goal with a couple days to spare, and am feeling tired but so excited to leave it all on the court. When I went out sharing on Wednesday afternoon I was just feeling exhausted. I didn’t want to be listening to people’s perspective on life who didn’t even want to be talking to me, and it was so incredibly hot and humid. I wasn’t feeling it, and I had plans to go out sharing for a few more hours with my discipler. What ended up happening was that my discipler and I approached a group of three girls and went through the survey of what they think about life and purpose, and I proceeded to lead them through a pamphlet called the “Knowing God Personally” booklet that presents the gospel clearly and concisely. They believed and wanted a relationship with Jesus, and actually prayed to receive Christ as their Lord and savior. And on Tuesday afternoon, two girls prayed to receive Christ with me and my friend, Bronwyn, as well. At work 2 hours ago, my friend Krysta brought a girl from China (named Casey) to Christ with the KGP as well. It’s insane to see the excitement these people have had about the decision they made, and to know that God has an amazing plan for their life and for their relationship with him.
(This is my action group!)
A Bible verse that is striking my heart this week is 2 Corinthians 12:9 when Jesus said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,” and Paul claimed, “therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” This week I have felt more incapable, exhausted, sinful, unintelligent and not knowledgable than I have felt in a long time. Yet God is using each one of us in eternal ways. I don’t deserve to play a role in God bringing someone into a relationship with him, but he has allowed me to. I don’t deserve to have a relationship with him, but thank God that he allows me to!
Honestly, I’m feeling blown away by God’s grace and depth. This week has been so powerful- seeing God change hearts and open souls to eternity is insane. There really is power in the name of Jesus, and I am so excited and encouraged to surrender all to him and watch how his power is made perfect in the weak and sinful and pathetic human that I am.
We have a wall in the Family Room where we post a "brick" (red paper with name on it) of the people who made a decision to follow Christ this week, and that wall is growing like wildfire! Check it out :).
Laney, this whole post brought tears to my eyes. Not only are amazing things happening to you, but they're happening THROUGH you, which is such a blessing to read about. I love you Lane.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that is really cool is that your writing style is really coming into it's own.. this whole post reads flawlessly.. it's transparent and from the heart, and it reads like you're talking to me, but not too informal. I'm really impressed! I think you've found your niche (and luckily it's not writing about Oronoko haha.)