April 2021
 

It was a frigid mid-February morning.  The temperature was around 4 degrees, but the windchill took it to approximately -15.  We hurriedly walked from the store to our car.  After getting in, I faced Chuck and said, "This is one of those days when no one should be outside."  Sensing someone over my shoulder, I turned and looked out my window.  There he was...looking into our car with snow on his dark eyelashes.  I rolled down the window as this young man began to share his story.  His name was Antoine.  Through a series of circumstances he ended up here and needed a bus ticket to get back to his hometown in IL.  We told him, instead of money, we would drive him to the bus station and purchase the ticket for him.  

I decided to take advantage of our captive audience and began conversing with him while weaving in the Gospel message.  No matter how hard I tried, it seemed as if I was fighting through cobwebs and with each and every word I found myself more and more tangled.  From my perspective, this conversation seemed  p a i n f u l l y  long for a relatively short ride.  Most likely from his too. 

Finally, we arrived at the bus station, Antoine and I went in to purchase the ticket for him to return home.  As I gave him his ticket and a tract, which I felt would be MUCH clearer than I had been, I reminded him that Jesus loves Him and told him we would be praying for him.  I got back in the car, breathed a heavy sigh and told Chuck that was the worst presentation of the Gospel I have ever given!  An epic failure. 

A few days later, the Lord reminded me of another time about 20 years ago, instead of going to church, I had been reluctantly nominated to preach an Easter sermon in a living room to a handful of mostly unsaved and uninterested family members.  (Some of you are already feeling the same stress I did at the very idea of it!).   This was a less than ideal situation that I felt was a total failure.  However, six months after this traumatic event, to my utter shock, I learned that my niece had decided to give her life to Christ that very day!!!  

I learned a very valuable lesson that day, one that I have to remind myself of from time to time.  Obedience to any opportunity Jesus gives us is never a failure, no matter what the perceived outcome is.  God is the One who can make beauty from ashes, triumph out of tragedy and victory out of defeat. Perhaps disobedience is really the only epic failure.  I have to wait until I get to heaven to see the end result of my lame attempt at sharing the Gospel with Antoine.  

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth:  It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."   Isaiah 55:10-11