School is back in session so that means my time to go out and make new friends has become limited with all the studying that I need to do in order to communicate with them. It's a tough balance to keep, between knowing when to stay home and study the language and when to go out to meet new locals that have not heard the Good News of Christ yet. Everytime I go out I quickly see my need to understand the language more and say to myself that I need to spend more time studying, and at the same time every time I stay in to study the language I have this awful guilt feeling that I should be out with the people! It's really horrible actually and I am learning that in order to feel satisfied with both, which both are my call right now, I need to share my time equally between the two. So I have set for myself a goal of telling at least ten locals the Good News per week, and studying enough to get all my homework done as well as taking time to learn new spiritual language that they do not teach in the classroom. Some will argue that it is better to focus on and learn the language first, then you will be ready to go out and share a whole lot. My problem with that is that you grow more aware everyday of the vast lostness of a city this crowded and you learn that you do not want to miss out on any opportunity that God has in store for you to be a part of, with or without knowing the language well. My husband and I have had plenty of talks on how to balance learning language while ministering and loving the people. We have concluded several things:
1. You can not retain what language you have learned without going out and using it often.
2. Going out and talking with the locals challenges us to learn more as we see our need for the language.
3. God is faithful and always provides communication between the locals and us when we are communicating the Gospel to them no matter how much language we do or do not know.
4. Practice makes perfect.
5. Being out with the people reminds us of why we have been graciously placed here in the first place and we never want to lose sight of that while our noses are in books.
This issue has reminded me of some wonderful friends back in the States who have mentioned to me once or a few times how they would be more willing to go out and share the Gospel once they had been trained thoroughly in it. I am pretty sure that is our culture speaking through us when we make comments like that and when we believe that we are only as good as our education takes us. But for some reason all of this reasoning goes out the door when it comes to how our Lord works. I often see Jesus in Scripture calling out the uneducated, the not so esteemed, the ones almost forgotten in society as the first evangelists. They did not have any seminars to attend to nor were they asked to write a ten page paper on how to evangelize. In fact, they were told by Jesus to not "be afraid; from now on you will catch men." Within context Jesus was helping them at the time to catch fish, telling them where to put their fishing nets. I am not against being educated on evangelism, being a Theology major myself, but experience with sharing proves to me over and over how He does it His way uniquely everytime. I also am guessing that many folks back at home and here have a fear that builds up in them when it is time to share our faith. This fear does not come from Him, because He tells the disciples to not be afraid. Fear holds back our proclaiming with confidence what He has done for us and fear is possibly the main reason why many of us justify why we do not go and share. Sharing the Gospel has such a HUGE impact on a lost soul and at the same time has such a HUGE impact on those sharing. Both speaker and listener get to experience the Lord at work in a beautiful way, one receiving Truth for the first time and the other seeing His faithfulness through being our Words for us. My habit of sharing with another comes from a motivation of wanting to know my God more and more. Everytime I experience the miracle of Him speaking through me to a lost soul I become more and more addicted to the presence that shows up, His presence. I have learned that waiting on something big to come through my front door in answer to my complaints of an empty and powerless life is a waiting on nothing. My personal time alone with Jesus within my home is a preparing of watching Him work outside of my home through little 'ol me. He is such a great God and loves us so much that He will allow us to be a part of His working in a lost soul. We need only to have no fear and allow Him to make us fishers of men... Now.
