While I was paying for a couple of items at a neighborhood gas station yesterday, the clerk asked if she could ask me a couple of questions. It was a bit uncomfortable because two other customers were waiting in line behind me.
Without even looking at the other guests, she asked, ‘What does the word ‘evangelical’ on your church sign mean?’ ‘It means that we believe that all people have sinned and are in need of a Savior and that that salvation is found only in Jesus’, I replied. Studying me a bit more closely, she asked, ‘Are you open and affirming?’
Taking a moment to collect my thoughts and considering the two people waiting in line and a kitchen worker listening in, I said that ‘we are open to what Jesus is open to and affirming of what He affirms.’ She began to turn away toward the other customers and then turned back to face me as if she wanted clarification. I took the opportunity to add, ‘We affirm that Jesus is the only Savior and that we are open to all who want to be saved through Him.’
Her response of ‘okay’ ended our conversation.
Looking back, I have made several mental notes:
- It is very uncomfortable to be asked these types of questions ‘cold turkey’, as they say. There’s always the discomfort of wishing you had said more or said something differently. And there’s always the discomfort of wondering how badly you ‘blew it’.
- The exchange may not have been for the clerk. It may have been for one or two of the other observers. Only God knows.
- The Lord determines if and what results from moments like these. As the scriptures say, ‘…for from Him and through Him and to Him are all things’. We leave it with Him.
- Be ready always to give an account of what we believe and have been taught about Jesus.
Thank you, Lord, for any and every opportunity to serve as a witness to point others to You.