I have been on vacation this week in Daytona Beach. It has been very good. Today is our last day, and this morning we rented an umbrella and stayed down at the beach for several hours. Tomorrow is Memorial Day, so a lot of people have come down, and the beach started to get crowded, a rather vibrant atmosphere.
I just finished the last book of "The Chronicles of Narnia" today. I greatly recommend the books. They are the sort of fiction that, at least for me, awaken my taste buds to things eternal. They call me away from the mundane to the glorious realization that I am covered by royal blood... a traitor known through and through, yet still brought in to the family.
While reading, I was approached by a couple of young college guys. I thought as they approached that they might be ready to draw me into a nearby game of frisbee or Bocci Ball. Instead, to my surprise and delight, they were there to share the Gospel. They asked if they could do a survey, and they asked some questions about my spiritual life and Jesus and such. They quickly realized that I was a fellow Christian, and I asked them if they were with Campus Outreach. They were! Jonathan Baggett, my big brother in Theta Xi, had done Beach Project at least a couple of years, so I knew of it already. Basically, these guys spend a summer doing a job but also sharing the Gospel with as many as possible.
These two guys, one of them more experienced and the other a first-timer, wanted to practice their tract. They had a simple tract that led through a discussion of what we are searching for, sin, and the solution. I was the first person they had come up to, and so I was an opportunity for them to sort-of get their feet wet. We talked back and forth as they went through the tract, and we stopped at some points to discuss different things, such as the nature of sin and death and the meaning of eternal life and the importance of grace in sanctification.
The Spirit has many ways of convicting me when I open my eyes because He is so creative and good, and I am so depraved. I felt this happening in myself. We would come to a point like the nature of sin. We would give explanations back and forth. Of course, I have thought much about the Gospel. I would throw in my two cents and back it up with Scripture. In them I had found like-minded souls, and they drank in some of the things I threw in that maybe they had never heard quite that way. And then the sinful part of my heart swelled with subtle pride as they appreciated what I had to say, as if I am wise. Of course, this is the way discipleship works - the older share with the younger, and there is growth, but pride corrupts all, even the passing on of spiritual truth as we can sadly see through church history, and especially in the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus' own day.
Here is my conviction. I have read many books, and I have studied Scripture, not enough but more than many. I was sitting there just relaxing and taking in the sun, and here were young men laboring for the Kingdom. Now, I don't think vacation is evil, and I don't know that every waking minute must be devoted to explicitly sharing the Gospel, though my flesh is weak and might prompt me to be wrong about that. Nevertheless, I was convicted that while I read more and more books and carry around more conversation potentialities in my head, believers with (probably) less knowledge were practically doing far more than I for the advancement of the Kingdom.
Father forgive me. Jesus, help me to love you with all. Spirit, lead in all!
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