When the first words someone says to you are “I think I lost God this week” it can be hard not to jump to conclusions, and even harder to think of what exactly to say next. This was my experience a few weeks ago at a freshers fair stand in Bath. We stood there, between the Nandos stand and a local nightclub, offering students a different kind of conversation. Instead of bombarding them with freebies, we were giving students a moment to have an actual conversation with someone, praying for conversations where we could share the hope of Jesus in amongst the chaos of freshers.
What blew me away that day was not only the amount of students who were happy to stop and chat, but it was the amount of students who came over to us, seeking a conversation. I’ve done quite a few of these stands before but I’ve not experienced the openness like I did that day. Maybe students were feeling particularly happy because the sun was shining, or maybe our stand was just in the perfect place to have a conversation, or maybe it was actually bigger than that. Maybe it was a sign of a move of God in this generation, waking students up to know and experience him.
One moment in particular stood out to me. I was waiting to spot someone who might be up for a conversation, when a guy and girl walked straight over to me and the guy, with a very straight and serious face just said “I think I lost God this week”. I had no idea whether he’d seen our banners and thought it was funny to say that, or whether he was being serious. So I made a point to get to know them a bit before coming back to what he’d said. I soon realised that he wasn’t joking and he really did think that because of the events of Freshers week, he thought that God would have turned his back on him. In the small window of time I had with them, I was able to tell them that the God I believe in isn’t like that, it isn’t possible to ‘lose him’, and instead of turning his back on us, God is pursuing us and wants to be in relationship with us. But I could see that this guy had grown to believe he wasn’t worthy of this love and it made me think, how many other students think they’ve made choices that would make God turn his back on them? How many of our housemates or coursemates or those on our sports teams, are crying out to be loved but they just don’t see themselves as loveable? And how can we, those who know the love of God, show our friends God’s love?
Why don’t you ask God this week, who do you want me to show your love to? Who might think that they’ve done enough to lose God and how do we show them his love regardless?
