When Faith Isn’t Private
One of my favorite things to do is meet with other church leaders. Yesterday I had the opportunity to do this with a friend who serves a local church. We met for lunch, caught up on each other’s families, and talked about scriptural teaching regarding what my friend was currently teaching. During our discussion, we both became animated (in a positive way!) and while we weren’t yelling, our conversation could be overheard by others close to us in the restaurant.
I was seriously enjoying myself!
As we were winding down our discussion, a young man approached us. He had just ordered takeout and had his food. He said, “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I overheard some of your discussion. You guys are both Christians, right?” Of course, we both said we were.
At that point, he asked, “Would you guys be willing to pray for me?” He shared his personal situation, and in tears, asked us to pray for him. We immediately agreed, and spent several minutes in prayer for him at our table.
When we finished, we looked up to see another young man standing by our table. He was wearing a polo shirt with a church logo and said, “I saw you praying for him. Would you be willing to pray for me too?” We talked with him briefly and then prayed for him as well.
After praying for them, we encouraged them to not try to deal with their situations alone. The first young man was not part of a local church, and we strongly encouraged him to be part of one of the churches in the area—my friend specifically giving the young man his phone number and inviting him to worship with their church this Sunday.
I love it when things like this happen! We had the chance to meet brothers we would probably never know otherwise. We were honored to be brought into their lives and to be able to lift them before the Lord. And we were given the opportunity to invite further contact which, if these young men follow up, will give us the chance to be part of their lives!
All this happened for one simple reason: we were living our faith simply and openly. We prayed to thank the Lord for our food before eating. We talked about the Lord and what He is doing in our lives. We discussed scripture and how it applies to our lives. And by the way—we were not being obnoxiously loud while doing this! In fact, as we were leaving, the manager thanked us for being willing to help these young men.
When we live our faith openly and honestly, God opens doors for us to serve Him and connect with others. But people are afraid of this today. We don’t want others to think we’re religious nuts. We know how the media often portrays Christians today, and we don’t want anyone to think we’re unloving or bigoted. We may even have bought the false teaching that faith is a private thing (scripture makes it extremely clear it is the opposite of private!). When we fall into these ways of thinking, we not only act in a way that is not faithful to our King—we rob ourselves of the opportunity to serve Him in ways we do not expect.
We may never know what the Lord has in store for us if we aren’t willing to be open about who we are.
Know Jesus and be Faithful!
Good stuff Randy
Praying in public is NOT living a life of faith in public. It is quite literally doing the bare minimum. Some may even think it to be disingenuous to the cause of Christ if those same people are not living a life of faith in their community. So maybe here’s a challenge: how are you showing you belong to Jesus in your community? How are you serving your neighbors? How are you active with organizations that help the needy? If you are gone tomorrow or move, would anyone notice or care (besides family)?
Praying in public–if it is real–IS living faith in public–as shown by the response we received and opportunities for ministry because of that and our conversation. I don’t disagree that this is low bar. But people don’t start by jumping the high bar. The blog was intended to encourage the vast majority of people of faith in this country who do not show their faith in any manner–high or low bar. In my experience (I have served the King for over 50 years in many different settings) most of these people are hesitant and/or scared because they haven’t been taught better. I don’t pretend what I suggested is the end–or even close. But it is a way people can start.
Steve, it isn’t the purpose of this blog–or comment section–to justify ourselves to one another. If you are asking rhetorical questions, I support them. If you aren’t, feel free to contact me personally and we can talk. Either way, I believe it is important that those of us who serve the King remember it is He who judges His servants–not you, or me. We need to be careful of how we present such questions. The world has trained Christians to talk (and write) the way it does–snarky, dismissive, challenging and judging. That isn’t the way we are told to talk to one another in scripture.