That awkward moment when you dare to ask God for an opportunity to share your faith with someone, and he immediately answers it in the form of two metal-heads on a train.
I literally sat down at a table on the train back to York from Northampton, and no sooner had I thought “God, please give me a chance to talk about Jesus to someone” than two lads my age walked up and asked “Is it ok if we sit here?” They were tall, bulky blokes all in black with leather wrist bands. One of them, Matt, had at least six piercings in his face, including a nose ring thing with spikes on the end. His friend Liam immediately said “Don’t worry, he just looks scary but he’s harmless!” And thus, the ice was broken immediately as they lowered themselves into the seats I’d gestured to, all of us laughing at “scary” Matt.
The trouble with having just spent a week at the Billy Graham Emerging Evangelists Institute (a place where you get training about sharing your faith in different contexts) is that, when my new metal-head friends asked me what I had been doing in their town for a week, the explanation got rather complicated. Amusingly, I had to explain about my faith in Jesus and what it means to be “an evangelist”… all whilst eliminating Christian jargon! And so we launched into what was an hour-long discussion about faith and God and Christianity within about three minutes of meeting.
I also prayed in my head as I began chatting to the guys, that my new friend Gareth from the course, would walk into my carriage and be able to join me. I knew he might have made it onto the same train as me, but I had no idea where he was. Brilliantly, the next moment the door slides open, Gareth walks in saying “Ah, there you are!” to which I was able to go “Liam and Matt, this is my friend Gareth, he was on the training too. Gareth, I was just explaining who Billy Graham is” and on we went.
Turns out, praying that I would get a chance to talk to someone about God was quite a risky thing to ask… because you have to be prepared for God to actually answer and give you just what you asked for! Have you ever done that? Have you ever dared to pray you get used to share something about Jesus and faith with someone else? When you’re sat on the bus, working in the library, on a coffee break between lectures, on a night out in the queue for the club… do you have the guts to accept the prayer dare?
Well, let’s find out… I dare you, right now, to pray and ask God to make sharing your faith with someone else unavoidable today. Or, if you don't know Jesus, I dare you to ask him to make himself known to you, right now.
