In Season and Out of Season

One Sunday my wife and I passed a neighbor's house on our way home from church. One of their daughters was standing outside their house doing laundry so we greeted her. Part of the normal series of greetings is asking where the person is coming from (people are nosy!) so she asked us and we replied that we were coming from church.

"What did you learn at church today?" she asked.

We'd never had anybody ask us that. We never dreamed that anybody would. It took us a second or two to respond. I quickly scoured my brain for the most hard-hitting bit of theology I could think of while my wife started off with, "We learned the importance of faith."

I jumped in, almost a bit embarrassed because it was so black-and-white, with, "We learned that if you pray in the name of Jesus, even the miraculous is possible."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "Because Jesus is powerful."

She pondered that for a moment and then we finished our standard greetings and walked off. I really wish I had known what to say next. I think she would have been interested in hearing more but I wasn't sure what to say. Of course as soon as we got home, I realized what I should have done. Many lessons here are taught by stories. The sermon had been full of stories, most of them taken directly from the Bible. The most natural thing in the world would have been to start telling her about the crippled woman in the synagogue, the demon-possessed boy, Lazarus...

My background looks for the hard-and-fast theology that will convince a person once and for all. That doesn't work here. But more importantly, I just wasn't ready to be asked. It seems I expect to spend lots of time and thought and prayer preparing to share my faith with somebody. As I watch my local friends boldly sharing their faith I realize that I need to move past deliberation and just do it. That's the only way it will eventually become natural.