Me and Pete were back in the Buddhist meditation centre the other day. We ordered a cup of tea and sat down, quietly praying that God would give us an opportunity to make a connection with someone. Then a member of the community came over and apologised for not giving us our complimentary biscuit with our tea.
As we chatted with him, he mentioned he had a chronic back problem that the doctors could no longer treat. I told him that we’d both experienced Jesus healing power in our lives, and offered to pray for him. After a little hesitation he allowed me and Pete to lay hands on him and pray in Jesus’ name for his healing.
I visited him the next day and he said that his back wasn’t aching as it usually did, although perhaps not surprisingly he was reluctant to attribute this to Jesus! We spent the next hour and half sharing stories of our spiritual experiences. I could see a real battle going on though as every time I told a story of how Jesus had healed me he either looked away or seemed quite moved, but then he’d immediately counter my story with Buddhist philosophy.
Its small steps I guess, but I do get the sense that God is doing something. We’ll go back to the centre later this week and see how things have developed.
Tim
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Awesome testimony Timothy. great to see God's power at work.
ReplyDeleteThing is, if you "need" (emotionally) someone to listen to your gospel story, you are taking what you feel you need, rather than, primarily, giving them something they feel they need. Whether or not they ACTUALLY need what you're pointing toward, this is what's happening socially. So, a question: how to point towards Jesus without "needing" results, and getting discouraged if you don't get praise or evidence of your effectiveness?
ReplyDeleteThanks again for getting in touch, much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteWhat I try and do to avoid any sense of ‘need’ or discouragement is to focus on God. For example, when me and Pete get together we start by spending time just quietly waiting on God until we get a sense of where he wants us to go (on this occasion it was the Buddhist centre, but it could be a pub, cafe, park or an individual). We then simply go in obedience. When there, we again just quietly sit and pray that God will show us who he wants us to speak to, or what he wants us to pray, and then again we simply do this in obedience.
So we don’t go out with any need that we’re looking to have fulfilled, and we don’t feel discouraged if nothing ‘happens’. Our one objective is to be obedient to what we sense God is saying.
That seems to me to be the way Jesus went about it. He sought God and then went out in obedience. So whether Jesus spent a day healing and leading people to faith, or whether he was misunderstood and rejected, he could finish the day satisfied knowing he did what was asked of him. As Jesus said ‘my food (i.e. need, sense of fulfilment, satisfaction etc ) is to do the will of him who sent me’.
Tim