gracie's musings

With each new season of life, I have learned to simultaneously mourn the loss of people, routines, or places while also balancing new rhythms and unanswered prayers. One thing I have tried to pursue are deep friendships. I’m not talking the ones where you bond over a drink order or a song, but ones where Christ is the center and rich, meaningful conversations occur. And one desire I have is to see people come to a saving knowledge of Christ. Now, the season of life I find myself in is both an answer to prayer (being surrounded by non-believers) and an “Omigosh, I have no idea what I am doing (when it comes to pursuing friendships with non-believers).” Let me explain. The Lord taught me in undergrad what rich friendship with other believers looks like- wholesome fellowship, frequent fasting, confession of sin, and loving rebuke from inner circle friends. He also grew my heart for the lost. Interacting mostly with non-believers daily is a blessing, but makes me realize I am not where I want to be when it comes to actually cultivating friendship and evangelizing to them. Thankfully, Paul already spoke on this in his first letter to the church in Corinth, and it is actually gold.

1 Corinthians 9:20-22, “ To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”

The message of the Gospel stays the same. What changes is my approach in order to be most effective. This means being better at picking up the small nuances of people’s character and personality during small talk. What people really need after salvation is not someone who will share the Gospel with them, but also their lives (1 Thessalonians 2:8).

Sadly, I cannot be in friendship with everyone I meet, so I am resting on Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:16 as another means to share of Christ quickly in passing. “…let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in Heaven.”

Time is precious. Souls need to hear.

Romans 10:14, “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”