A car company could purchase every available advertising minute during the Super Bowl and not sell any cars if the people who already had one spread the word the cars were debris on wheels. I sometimes wonder if the money we spend on evangelism is a testimony to our failure as Christians. We talk about witnessing as if it were something we go somewhere and do. Witnessing is living. Witnessing is not standing on a street corner passing out pamphlets. It is not knocking on doors annoying people. Witnessing is being the happiest, most peaceful person in our workplace and neighborhood.
Everyone wants to be happy and to be loved. Everyone. If we were truly happy loving people it would not take long for others to notice. The world would rush to us. “Build a better mousetrap . . . .”
Yesterday one of my undergrad classes came in looking like Red Sox fans. What doom and gloom! I asked them if they would be happy if they just won the lottery. “Oh yes,” they said. I asked if I gave them a ticket assuring them a place in heaven if they would be happy. “If we believed you,” was the response I received. There it was. We talk about salvation but so often fail to really believe it. At least so often that’s the way we act.
Isn’t it strange that we find it easy to believe stupid urban myths and yet struggle with the Gospel? Could it be that we just cannot imagine being so blessed? Is it for everyone else but not me? Repeat after me. “It is for me.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on November 13, 2003
Spring of Life, 901 Signorelli Circle, St. Helena, CA 94574