I often say that I believe that God has a sense of
humour, because many of the things that I used to despise about
Christians, I now do myself! Yes, I am often the
man that knocks the front door to say "Hello, I am from your
local church”, or the person who stands on a
street with a microphone sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Before becoming a
Christian I particularly disliked anyone involved in preaching. Well, I am
delighted to say that I do a lot of that now. God is so good!
The Lord is able to use our situations
when we yield ourselves to Him - even our
struggles and hardest times. Through my own life experiences I am able to
empathise with people who have been through similar circumstances.
When people know that you really understand and care,
it builds trust and credibility. From there you can then point people to the
truth of the Gospel.
The great Christian motivational speaker Zig Ziglar often used to say, “People don’t care what
you know, until they know how much you care!” I
used to listen to his sales training tapes over and over again while driving
long distances between my offices. I have never forgotten the statement. I can
confirm its validity because you will see the
hardest people open up when they know you genuinely care.
Key Point: The Lord is
able to use our experiences when we yield ourselves to Him.
You could be witnessing to a person who may be going
through a really difficult time and in what they feel is an impossible
situation. We know that God can transform
situations when people allow Him to move in their lives. I often explain
that I know He can turn things around because He transformed the life of a self
obsessed, money grabbing, lying, cheating, adulterer. Yes, that was me! The
amazing thing is that He now uses me to share the good news!
"And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called
according to his purpose". Romans 8:2
This is the excerpt: I didn’t
have a full licence to drive a car on my own at the time, as I had not yet
passed my driving test. I used to get a lift to work with our Butchery Manager,
Terry Ford. He used to pick me up with his wife and children.
They were a
Christian family and his wife was one of those ‘happy clappy people’. She would
say things that irritated me, like “Praise the Lord” and “Thank you Jesus”. She
reminded me of the weird Christians I had seen on television some years before.
I considered her and
all other Christians to be the same type of people. I disliked them all and
believed that they were all weaklings that used Jesus as some sort of crutch.
To me being a church goer was the total opposite of karate which had taught me
about building self belief and inner strength, which was nothing like what I
thought being a Christian was.
One Friday afternoon
when we on our way home from work with Terry and his family, we got stuck in a
traffic jam in the centre of the town. We were moving along very slowly in the
car in a busy area. We came to a standstill behind a white Triumph Herald. A
sign that was stuck on the lower middle part of the back window gradually came
into focus. It read in bold print, “TOOT
IF YOU LOVE JESUS!” “Oh no!” I thought, “Oh Please don’t let her notice it
there.” She saw it and with a big smile on her face she said at the top of her
voice, “Oh look, Praise the Lord!” I hoped that she would only give the horn a
quick thump, but oh no, she waved to the person in the car in front and hit the
horn long and hard “TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!”,"TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!",
"TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!"
I felt extremely
embarrassed and believed everyone was staring at me. I wanted the ground to
open up and swallow me. Everyone was laughing in the car except me. I sat there
with my arms folded and had a look of total disgust on my face. I resented her
for doing it and I even started walking to work because of it. On the odd
occasion I saw her, it was very difficult for me to even speak to her.
I hope this story made you smile or even laugh. You have a
story to share. Go and share it.
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