Guest Blogger Laura Nicklin is a student who is stepping out in faith and we think it's worth sharing...
Something brilliant happened on a train to Lancaster on Friday, which I want to share with you all.
The cheapest train is literally a bus on tracks stopping at every station possible. Understandably the train was pretty empty, but there was group of guys in suits and something said to me “sit with that guy”. I knew that I needed to talk to him, so I did. We started talking about our lives and I didn’t mention my degree really, instead I talked about church, Besom project, alpha and all the things I’m involved in at York.
You never know how someone will react but he seemed intrigued.
Listening, he turned to me saying “to be honest, I don’t know about God, I’m 40 odd years old , I don’t know if I’ll ever work it out but I’d really like to hear your story about your faith.” I thought brilliant, I could hear Miriam saying that "we keep sowing"! Thinking it’s time to sow I told him my story, speaking from my heart about everything that brought me to where I am now on my journey with God. The guy had a million questions and we had an amazing discussion, leading to talking about prayer. I keep seeing awesome things happen through prayer, so I told him about some of them.
He went quiet, but I didn’t push him, I let him think, like we do at alpha. He said “I don’t know why but I get the feeling that prayer is really powerful isn’t it?” Arriving at his station, he said he was sorry he couldn’t chat longer but he was going to think about praying and maybe try, though he doesn’t know if there’s anyone listening, he hadn’t thought about it enough before. I met this man for 30 minutes and I’ll probably never see him again but I know that God led me to sit with him, knowing that man was ready to move forward and begin his journey.
I told the truth as I know and live it and now he's gone away to possibly pray. I always think about sharing my faith with my friends, or people I’m introduced to but I rarely pick a stranger and go for it. This man could have told me to stop talking, but he didn’t. This could be the first step on his journey. I don’t know what you guys reckon but I just thought this was a brilliant example of God's direction. I will remember this guy and this chat in my prayers. My prayer is that he doesn’t ignore this, but carries it with him. He said “that there is too much to my story to make it a coincidence”. I really think that he’s gone away to think on it and chat to God which is AMAZING.
I hope this gives you encouragement, there is no reason not take risks and keep sowing, as some of these seeds will fall on good soil and grow to know and love God as we do.
