Getting Lost in Discussion

Suggested Reading: Acts 8:26-40

I have this really bad habit of discovering online discussion boards and then getting lost in the discussion for days at a time. Usually the discussions in which I lose myself are religious discussions in which people are debating a particular point of scripture or are curious about how one can believe what I believe. Most of the time, these discussions seem to be absolutely fruitless because the involved parties are all people who think they have all the answers and are not interested in listening, only in getting other people to admit that they are right.  Every now and then, however, you come across someone who is genuinely seeking and willing to listen. While having a discussion with one such person I recently found myself explaining a passage of scripture that connects me to a man named Philip.

In Acts chapter 8, Philip is instructed by an angel of the Lord to head out on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza and he encounters an Ethiopian official reading from Isaiah 53. 

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,

And as a lamb before the shearer is silent

So he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.

(Acts 8:32-33, Isaiah 53:7-8, NIV)

The Ethiopian asked of the passage, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" (Acts 8:34, NIV) and Philip was able to lead the man to Christ and baptize him.

One key difference exists between Philip's experience with the Ethiopian eunuch and the fruitless debates we so often have with people: Philip allowed God to direct him to the right person and place. Much of the time, we are so busy pursuing our own interests and desires that we don't allow God to lead us to those people that God has already prepared. We get distracted by whatever shiny thing comes across our path instead of remaining disciplined and faithful to listen for God's voice through the course of each day. So, rather than speaking God's word into the lives of people God has directed us to, we either don't share the gospel at all or we toss our seed onto unprepared soil.

God is not willing that any should perish and God has a plan to reach the world. What is more, God knows which hearts he's prepared to hear and which hearts are still as hard as stone. Are we seeking out instructions from the God who knows each heart and mind or are we missing the appointments God has made for us? 

Translating the Language of Karmic Balance

Suggested Reading: 1 Corinthians 14:6-12

Several years go, I had the privilege of spending a summer witnessing to a Vietnamese family that had moved into the neighborhood. Most of my conversations took place with a college-aged young man from the family. He had been raised in a Buddhist tradition and had only been in the States for a couple of years. Very early on in the discussion I discovered a significant difficulty in witnessing to this man: language. I don't mean that we spoke different languages in the sense that I spoke English and they spoke Vietnamese because most of them spoke very good English. I mean that there were entire concepts that were alien to them. Sin was literally a foreign concept. How do you convince someone that they need to be saved from sin when they don't understand what sin is or why it could cause lasting consequences? When you believe firmly that karmic balance is always possible, why would anyone ever need a savior? That summer I had to learn ways to communicate the Gospel in its most basic form and in terms that someone completely unfamiliar with Western Christianity would understand.

In 1 Corinthians 14, the Apostle Paul was discussing the roll of speaking in tongues in the church and he wrote, There are doubtless many different kinds of languages in the world, and all have meaning. Therefore, if I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be a foreigner to the speaker, and the speaker will be a foreigner to me (1Co 14:10-11, HCSB). Paul was specifically addressing the benefits of saving that particular spiritual gift for non-public moments unless an interpreter was present, but the statement also has larger implications pertaining to basic communication, like the example of witnessing to my Vietnamese neighbors.

More and more we live in a world where people do not understand the language we use when we witness. Words like "sin" and "saved" mean little in a world where people either believe everybody goes to Heaven or that your existence ends the moment you die. Fifty years ago, the American church still had the educational power that ensured nearly everyone knew what "justification" and "atonement" meant, even if they didn't put much stock in those things. Today's society has grown up without those influences and educational experiences and we must learn to speak a new language. We must learn to step outside of the church cultures in which we operate and speak in a language that unchurched, unreached people understand. We must strive to understand the Gospel well enough that we can communicate it in its most basic form to those who have no reference for what we are saying. Who is Jesus? Why do we need Him? How do we follow Him? What difference will following Him make? If we cannot answer these questions in simple terms, we might as well be speaking a foreign language.

Lying to Convince People of the Truth

Suggested Reading: Job 13:7-16 (Job is responding to his friends who are saying that God has allowed Job to go through tragedy because he must be a horrible sinner)

When they were very young,  we took our kids to Movie Studio Grill because we thought they would enjoy watching a movie in a theater and eating dinner at the same time. We were right about that. They thought it was great that we watched a movie in a theater at a table while waiters took our orders and then brought us our food. Overall, it was a fun experience. But I found myself not really enjoying the movie. We chose a kid's movie and it was enjoyable on that level, but it was one of those movies that tries make a point and isn't very subtle about it. I didn't even mind that. But in order to make its point, the movie went so far to one extreme and ignored so many of the basics of the discussion in which it tried to participate that it lost all credibility with me.  In some ways, the movie simply lied about the "opposing point of view" in order to achieve what the writers obviously considered a noble goal. That practice has always gotten me a little hot under the collar. If you have a good point and the truth is really on your side, why would you have to lie or misrepresent in order to make your point?

The experience reminded me of a verse from Job that I have been thinking about a lot lately. Job 13:7-10 reads, "Are you defending God with lies? Do you make your dishonest arguments for his sake? Will you slant your testimony in his favor? Will you argue God's case for him? What will happen when he finds out what you are doing?...you will be in trouble with him if you secretly slant your testimony in his favor" (NLT).  A disturbing trend I have seen developing when Christians try to "debate" non-believers is a tendency to exaggerate, to misrepresent non-believers and atheists, to essentially lie in order to defend God.

Far too often, we say things that, if we are honest with ourselves, we know are not true. Things like, "Atheists only want an excuse to live however they want" when we know that many have reasons for not believing that we simply don't agree with. Things like, "Evolution is just an excuse not to believe in God" when we know that many people are dealing with what they consider legitimate scientific data that we want to dismiss in the same way they dismiss what the Bible says. Things like, "You can't really be a decent person if you aren't saved" when we encounter lost people everyday who live relatively decent lives and Christians whom we accept as saved but who live like the devil.

When we use half-truths, misrepresentation, barely veiled lies, and intellectually dishonest arguments to make our point, it severely undercuts the truth to which we are trying to lead people. If we really have the truth on our side, we shouldn't be afraid of that truth, even when it might appear to support the "other side." If what we believe cannot stand up to honest investigation and debate, then it isn't worth believing. But if we really believe the truth, then a thorough, tough investigation will only reinforce what we believe. 

More significant than that, Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6, NIV). When we distort the truth, we are messing with the person of Jesus. Does it really support our purpose to distort who Jesus is in order to get people to believe in God? When Job essentially asked, "Will you lie in order to defend God?" he also asked, "Would it turn out well if he examined you?...He would surely rebuke you…"  What do we accomplish in bringing people to Jesus if we base their faith on a lie and earn God's rebuke in the process?

Let's not lie in order to defend God. The truth will set us free. Let's not be afraid of it. 

Fishing in an Empty Pond

Suggested Reading: Matthew 4:18-25

One of the things about Stargate SG-1 that always entertained me was the fact that the show never took itself too seriously. That tone was set by a leading character, Jack O'Neill, who loved to go fishing so much that he had a fishing pond installed on his property behind his rustic log cabin home. But because he enjoyed fishing more than he actually enjoyed catching fish, he never had any fish put into the pond. Jack would simply sit there in his lawn chair, with an ice chest full of cold drinks, watching the water and casting his line out every once in a while. I don't think he even used any bait.

When Jesus called the first disciples, he said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19, NIV). That call extends to all of us who have decided to follow Jesus, but sometimes I think we enjoy fishing for men the way Jack O'Neill enjoyed fishing. We like talking about it. We enjoy feeling like we're fishing. We may even enjoy going through the motions just like Jack enjoyed casting out his line. But at the end of the day, we're more interested in fishing for people than in catching people. You can tell because, like Jack, we don't actually go where the fish are. We stay where we are comfortable, where we can feel like we're fishing, where we might catch something if the fish come to us, but we aren't willing to leave our areas of comfort to get to where the fish actually are. 

Jesus was known as a friend of sinners because he went where the sinners were. Jesus went into the homes of the tax collectors and ate with the prostitutes. He hung out with sinners so much that the religious leaders labeled him a drunkard and a glutton (Mathew 11:19). He wasn't. But Jesus didn't fear being labelled by people who claimed to care about others but only actually pushed them away from the kingdom of God (Mathew 23:13-15). Jesus hung out with sinners because he remembered it is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick (Mathew 9:12, NIV).

If we want to get serious about fishing for people, we must be willing to go where the fish are. We must be willing to spend time with sinners and hang out with people who don't act like good Christians. And we must be willing to love them the same way Jesus did, accepting them and caring for them without ever condoning or glossing over their sin.

Are we fishing for people in order to catch something or are we just going through the motions? Instead of sitting by an empty pond, casting out lines in vain, let's go where the fish are. Who knows? We might actually catch someone.

Creating Rules for Non-Existent Things

Suggested Reading: Mark 10:17-27

In my first youth ministry experience, in a little church on the Texas coast, I had the privilege of working with a young man who was very inquisitive about the scriptures. He wasn’t a Christian when I first met him, but he was curious, and he was serious about investigating scripture’s claims, trying to verify them, and deciding whether scripture was true or not. One day he came to me very troubled by something he had found. He was studying the Ten Commandments and was troubled by the implication of one of them. The commandment? You shall have no other gods before me. He wasn’t troubled by the idea that we were only supposed to worship the One God of the Bible. He was worried that God was saying there actually were other gods out there. Didn’t most of the Bible teach that there was only one God? If that is the case, what was the point of prohibiting the worship of other gods? Why prohibit worshiping something that doesn’t exist? I prayed quickly and answered, “Whether those other gods really existed or not, the people thought they did. And it was more effective to prohibit the worship of those non-existent gods than to try to convince the people of Israel that they didn’t really exist. That would come later, but God was meeting them where they were at that particular moment in time.” At least in part, I told him, God was picking the battles that were most important.

I recently had my own experience with scripture that took me through the same process as I examined the passage. In Mark 10, Jesus told his disciples, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God” (Mark 10:25-27, ESV). The disciples’ reaction to Jesus' claim of how difficult it was for the rich to be saved was met by the reaction that it must be impossible for anyone to be saved. The disciples, like many Jews of the day, believed that wealth was a sign of God’s blessing on a righteous life. They knew of exceptions to that rule, I’m sure, but that was the thinking of the day. So, if the people God was blessing couldn’t be saved, how could anybody be saved?

Though the disciples were operating under a false premise that the rich were more worthy of salvation than the poor, Jesus didn’t correct that premise. Instead, he pointed them to the bigger picture – human beings are hopelessly separated from God, but anything is possible with God. Rich or poor, wise or foolish, Jew or Gentile, God could save anybody because nothing was impossible with God. Jesus could have gotten hung up on correcting the disciples’ false premise, and the disciples, as wool-headed as they were, probably wouldn’t have been able to grasp what Jesus was saying. Instead, Jesus chose to teach them a larger principle, a principle which would eventually correct the other one anyway.

As we interact with people, as we witness and as we teach our kids, as we disciple and mentor, there will be times when we encounter false premises, bad ideas, and foolish notions. Sometimes those things will have to be addressed, but sometimes we need to step back and look at the bigger picture so that we can share a truth which is bigger than their misconceptions, a principle which, once they learn it, will eventually correct the little things, too. Rather than correcting every little thing and getting bogged down in the minutiae, we must point people to the bigger, more powerful truths, like the love and power of God and the commands to love God first and love our neighbors like ourselves. We must learn which inaccuracies we must correct and which to let stand for the moment because something bigger is at stake.

Let’s not get bogged down with insignificant distractions. We must choose our battles carefully and never sacrifice the war for the sake of a single battle.

Winning Your Fairy-Tale Husband Without Words

Suggested Reading: 1 Peter 2:11-3:7

Disney’s animated film, The Little Mermaid, is one of my favorite animated movies. Watching it when I was in junior high, you would think I’d have identified with the prince but I normally identified more with Ariel, the mermaid who was magically transformed into a human girl and had three days to get Prince Eric to fall in love with her and kiss her, all while the evil Sea Witch, Ursula, held her voice hostage. I don’t think I was ever what you would call shy, but I was very reserved when it came to approaching girls. I liked to do things for the girls I liked, showing them that I liked them before I ever said a word to them. So Ariel, who had to win the heart of the prince without the use of her voice, was easy for me to identify with. And over the course of the movie, even though Prince Eric was looking for the woman with the beautiful voice who had saved him on the beach, he ended up falling in love with Ariel simply because of the things she did, because of who she was, without her ever speaking -- or singing -- a word.

1 Peter 3:1-2 gives instructions for wives in dealing with their husbands, but they apply to all of us when it comes to trying to share the Gospel with the people around us. Peter writes, In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over by observing your pure and reverent lives (NLT).  I’ve known some women who desperately wanted their husbands to come to Christ and a couple of times, the husband got so tired of hearing the Gospel from their wives that they eventually demanded that they stop talking about it. Peter, I think, was talking to women in that kind of predicament, women who cared deeply for their husbands and who desperately wanted them to come to Christ, but whose husbands didn’t want to hear about it anymore. To those women, Peter said, “Obey your husbands. Stop talking to them about the Gospel. Show it to them instead.” Talking to people about the Gospel is much easier than living it out consistently in front of them. But even though living the Gospel out is much harder, doing so is much more effective than simply talking.

As we go through our daily routines, interacting with co-workers and family members, neighbors and classmates, there are times when talking about the Gospel simply isn’t a viable possibility. Sometimes people don’t want to hear it. Sometimes they have heard it so often they just nod along while thinking about something else. Sometimes doing our job right makes it difficult or perhaps the work place prohibits religious speech (as much or perhaps even more than is legal). In any and all of these cases, rather than getting frustrated or angry that talking about the Gospel is difficult, frowned upon, or ill-received, show the Gospel to people. Intentionally make your life a living billboard for the love of God. Love people sincerely. Serve people without expecting anything in return. Show compassion to the hurting and give mercy to those who behave badly. Live the kind of pure and reverent life that will win people over without words.

Sharing the Gospel with people isn’t just about telling them about the love of God, but about showing them the love of God. A less than stellar life can drive people away from the Gospel we share in words, but a pure and reverent life of love can draw people in and prepare their hearts to receive the Gospel when we finally do speak. When we share the Gospel, let’s win people over with our lives as well as our words.

Hitchhikers, Floggings, and Captive Audiences

Suggested Reading: Matthew 10:11-20

When I was in college and living the single life, I noticed a pattern whenever I would make the three hour drive from college to my parents's house. Quite regularly, I would see someone on the side of the road who was asking for a ride. So I would stop, figure out where they were headed, get the best feel I could for how much danger I would be in, and give them a ride down the road. I discovered that these times gave me an excellent opportunity to share the Gospel with people. For one, they were something of a captive audience because they needed a ride and I had a car. But they were also willing to listen to what I had to say because they needed a ride and I had stopped for them.

Speaking about very different circumstances, Jesus told his disciples of some opportunities they would have to share the Gospel. But beware! For you will be handed over to the courts and will be flogged with whips in the synagogues. You will stand trial before governors and kings because you are my followers. But this will be your opportunity to tell the rulers and other unbelievers about me (Matthew 10:17-18, NLT).  In these circumstances, Jesus was telling his disciples that their trials and beatings would be opportunities to share the Gospel.

In both sets of circumstances, the Gospel would find fertile soil, and for much the same reason: people wanted to listen to what you said. In my case, people wanted to listen because I met a need they had. In the example Jesus gave, people wanted to listen in order to investigate charges and mete out justice. But in both cases, people would listen and ponder the Gospel as it was presented to them.

Hopefully, you won't have to go to jail, but you will experience circumstances where people, for one reason or another, will be very interested in what you have to say. Watch for those opportunities when people are willing to listen. Create those opportunities by giving people reason to listen to you. And, whatever your circumstances, remember that God will reach out to people through you if you allow God to do so. Don't let those moments when people are receptive to you slip away.

Whenever people are listening to you or watching you, use the opportunity to point them toward Jesus. Who knows? That hitchhiker or judge may be ready to hear exactly what you have to say

Only Granting Demons' Requests

Suggested Reading: Mark 5:1-20

In Mark chapter 5, something has always seemed a little odd to me. The Legion of demons that Jesus casts out of the Gerasene man makes a request of Jesus and Jesus grants it by allowing them to go into the pigs, but then he turns around and denies the request of the man who has been their victim. In Mark 5:18-20 we find this exchange, 'As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him. Jesus did not let him, but said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you." So the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed' (NLT).

This man who had been demon-possessed begs to be with Jesus, as I would think just about any of us would. This man had lived for years as a prisoner in his own body, haunting the local cemetery and mountainside, wailing and moaning at all hours of the night and day and cutting and gashing himself with rocks so that he was probably scarred from head to toe, and Jesus had set him free from that.  Naturally, the man wanted to be with Jesus but Jesus gave him a task instead, urging him to go home to the people who had known his condition and to share with them what God had done in his life.

In that little nugget, I believe, is the secret to sharing our faith with people. I have had enough conversations and witnessing opportunities through the years to know that intellectual conversations about the Bible only amount to anything on rare occasions.  People who don't believe the Bible aren't necessarily going to be convinced of its truth because we can name prophecies that came true or because we can point to some debatable archaeological evidence or because we can rattle off someway to demonstrate that science and the Bible are compatible, even though all of those things may be good. A skeptic is going to be a skeptic regardless of the evidence we present.

But when we tell someone our own story about how God has moved in our lives, when we tell someone about how God saved us from a terrible situation, healed our broken heart, rearranged our priorities, saved our marriage, set us free from addictions, or helped us through a time of crisis, when we tell someone about the difference God has made in our own lives, it is a little harder for them to argue with us. They may ask, "Well, how do you know that was God?" They may question our interpretation of events. But most people will not look you in the eye and say, "That's just a story made up by some ancient person trying to explain their life!" When you share your own story with people, it is your story and rarely will someone tell you, "I don't believe you!"

More than that, sharing our own story stands in the tradition of the very people who were inspired by the Holy Spirit to lay out the words of the Bible. What is the Bible if not a collection of people telling their own stories about what God did in their lives and saving those stories for future generations to hear? When you feel the call of God on your life to share the Gospel with someone, God is not just concerned with you spouting facts about the Bible because anyone could do that. When God calls you to witness to someone, God is calling, at least in part, because your story is one they need to hear. God wants people to know that He is moving in your life right now and that God's power is not confined to ancient peoples in far-off lands.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar to witness, you just have to be willing to talk about what God has done for you.

Witnessing With Puppy Love Potions

Suggested Reading: Mark 4:13-29

One of my children's favorite fairytale movies is the recent Snow White movie Mirror, Mirror. In this particular telling of the classic fairy-tale, the Evil Queen decides that she wants to marry the handsome prince and she gives him a love potion in order to bring it about. If you have seen trailers for the movie, you already know that she doesn't just give him a love potion, but accidentally gives him a puppy love potion and he begins barking and scratching and fetching and following her around like a little lost puppy dog. Of course, as in all such fairy-tales, the spell is broken and the prince's true affections for Snow White win out. (I hope I didn't just ruin the movie for anyone, but that is what happens in fairy-tales.)

While the Evil Queen's plan is both funny and sad, her attempt to force the prince to love her is often very similar to how we can approach  witnessing to people. Often we want people to be saved so badly, we are so desperate for someone to give their life to Jesus, that we poke and prod and annoy and interfere and bug people as if we can force them to love Jesus. I once knew a young man who was pondering giving his life to Jesus and we had a number of conversations about what Heaven would be like and what it would mean for Jesus to be Lord in one's life. We had some very positive discussions where he seemed to be moving closer and closer to following Christ. But there was another lady in this young man's life who just kept pushing him and forcing the issue as if she could make him love Jesus by the sheer force of her will. Inevitably, after every conversation that this woman forced on him, he was more resistant to the idea of following Christ.

In Mark 4, Jesus told a very short parable about the kingdom of God. He said, "The kingdom of God is like this. A man scatters seed on the ground; he sleeps and rises--night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows--he doesn't know how. The soil produces a crop by itself--first the blade, then the head, and then the ripe grain on the head. But as soon as the crop is ready, he sends for the sickle because the harvest has come" (Mark 4:26-29, HCSB). At this point, Jesus is in a set of parables where the seed being sown is the Word of God. The seed is sown and, in this case, Jesus points out that it grows all by itself. We can't get down into the soil of someone's life and force the seed to grow, it just does -- all by itself.

We are reminded all throughout scripture about the power of the Word of God. Hebrews 4:12 tells us, "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart" (NIV). Isaiah 55:11 reminds us "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" (NIV). God's Word is powerful enough on its own to work and poke and prod people from the inside. Our responsibility is to share God's Word with people, to water that seed as it works in them and produces questions and conflicts that God will use to shape and change them. But we must guard against those instincts and tendencies that make us want to force people to love Jesus. We can't ever force someone to believe or to surrender to God's love.  Love and belief simply don't work that way. But the Word of God is living and active and powerful enough to pull the strings of people's hearts and to persuade people's minds of truth all by itself.

God has called us to sow the seed of his word, to water it and to harvest when the time comes. But God's Word grows in a person's heart all by itself. Let's not harm the seed in someone's life by trying to force it to grow.

Admitting My Wife Doesn't Exist

Suggested Reading: Acts 4:1-22

Well, I made the mistake of venturing into one of those online debates again. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to actually get drawn in and start commenting. But the conversation was a debate about the possibility of God's existence. The Christian wanted the atheist to admit to the possibility that he was wrong and the atheist wanted the Christian to admit to the possibility that he was wrong. Other people chimed in from both sides and some people from both sides opened up to the possibility that they were wrong. And the whole time I was reading this conversation I was thinking, "We're arguing about the possibility that we might be wrong instead of discussing why we think we're right? These people obviously didn't take debate class in high school."

The conversation reminded me of an instance where some people were trying to get the disciples to stop talking about Jesus. Peter and John were going to the temple when they met a lame man and healed him in the name of Jesus. This man's miraculous healing provided them an opportunity to preach about Jesus and they used it. But the preaching got them arrested and dragged before the ruling council. After a long and lengthy session, the council ordered them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus.  Peter's and John's response is profound: "We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20, NLT).

Peter and John didn't get into a debate about the logical reasons for Jesus' position as Messiah and offer empirical data that would support their thesis concerning his resurrection and validate their reasons for preaching. They offered what they had seen and heard.

Not long ago I had a discussion with an old friend who has become an atheist and I asked him, "If God does not exist, do my experiences with God make me delusional?" He responded that people often have emotional experiences that don't have anything to do with the supernatural or with God but are often interpreted that way. I told him that I wasn't talking about emotional experiences (if you know me I don't have many emotional experiences), but that I was talking about times when God spoke into my life and the experience of God speaking into my life was tested and  it endured the passing of time. Did that make me delusional? My friend never responded.

I can share examples of when God spoke or moved in my own life, not where I got a mystical feeling or suddenly felt better about something, but actual examples of the voice and movement of God in my life and the consequences that flowed from them. Admitting to the possibility that I am wrong about the existence of God, for me, is like admitting to the possibility that I am wrong about the existence of my wife or my next door neighbor. If you're reading this from across the country I may not be able to prove to you that they exist, but I can introduce you to them if you are willing to go for a ride. I cannot admit to the possibility that God doesn't exist because I have met God and experienced God's direct intervention in my life, regardless of whether I have empirical data that proves God's existence to the rest of the world.

Don't get caught in philosophical and logical arguments for or against the existence of God. Share with people the wonderful things we have seen and heard. Tell them your story of encounters with God.

***

If you don't have any stories of your own, find someone who does and let them introduce you to the One who was spoken into their life. If you would like to talk to me, just comment and let me know you would like to talk (the comments are hidden until I approve them) and I will contact you.  I would love the opportunity to share my stories with you.