Don't Miss It

Photo by ingridtaylar on Flickr

I don’t know what goes on in dental school.  They obviously have to talk about teeth, and how to fix them and whatnot, but sometimes I seriously think they have lessons over the most awkward times to start a conversation.  Like when they’re about to put their hands in your mouth.  It never fails.  Every time the hygienist takes you back to the room and seats you, you get comfortable, she grabs her tools, and right before she starts to work, she asks you something kind of important.  For instance “did you do anything fun this summer?” 

I’m sure you all know that I have just had the most amazing summer of my life sharing Christ with kids at camp.  I was even sporting my orange OMC shirt that day.  That seems to be the perfect question now, but for me to even try to tell someone about my summer could take hours.  There are so many stories, so many awesome moments that God was so clear, that I could talk for days.  So as she asked me the question, I contemplated how to answer.  Of course I told her that I had just gotten back from an amazing summer working Centrikid, a kid’s church camp.  She asked for the usual details, like where we went, what we did, and I quickly wrapped up those general things while still wondering if she understood how cool it was.  It didn’t really matter though, because she was already making her way to the x-ray machine.

As I drove away from the dentist’s office, I realized the opportunity that I had to tell her about Christ.  Maybe not full-on “Jesus died for your sins and if you don’t believe that then, well, I can tell you where you’re going!”, but just telling her how my team and I served God this summer by telling kids about Him was just a way to show an example of His love.  It wasn’t much, but you never know if that little bit could get someone thinking.  Telling her about camp didn’t send her to her knees, but what if it planted a seed?

One of the things I knew I would miss about camp was the easy opportunities we had to share the Gospel, to openly show those campers how much God loves them.  But the truth is, those opportunities are still all around us.  I told my kids every week that we had to remember that there are people all around us, who live beside us, who see us every day, who sit beside us at school who don’t know Jesus.  Camp has been an easy lead-in to sharing Christ, because it’s easy to share the amazing God stories since there were so many.  But lots of other people don’t have camp to lean back on for sharing Christ to others.  I want to encourage you that even if you didn’t have a crazy summer like I did, you still have a crazy amazing story that you can tell.  If you’re a Christian, then God HAS done something amazing in your life.  Maybe that time is when He changed it.  That’s what you get to tell other people.  Jesus commands us in Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  It’s our job as Christians.  The opportunity is all around you.  Don’t miss it.


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