“I’m going to do something nice for our neighbors” He smiles at me in the low light of darkening bedroom. I see his teeth shining up there in the top bunk.
“Oh yeah?” I question him, interested. “Like what”?
“I’m going to tell them how much Jesus loves them!” His enthusiasm is palpable.
He is so bold, saying these words without hesitation–hope glittering in his chocolate-brown eyes.
He’s asking me a lot lately about how we can tell them about Jesus. I’ve hugged hard, his hunched shoulders when his invitations to church have been shyly declined, or otherwise unanswered. He doesn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to know the Jesus he knows. Really, I can’t either, but my experience has shaped how I choose to witness–or not to witness.
Before I stop myself the words slip out, and the tone I take, low, fearful, consoling –discouragement disguised as suggestion.
{I can’t believe what I am saying}
I offer suggestions for a less obvious witness. I tell him we can show them Jesus in our Christmas cards, and in our cinnamon rolls. I’m talking about hospitality and he’s talking about harvesting souls. I bite my lip, thankful for the cover of evening. My shame glows in the center of his room.
He looks at me square on, tilting his head, chin lifted, he spreads his gangly arms and says with such passion, “wouldn’t you want to hear that God loved you so much that he sent his one and only son to die on a cross for you”?
Who wouldn’t want to hear that good news?
He’s so genuine I think I might break wide open as I stand there.
I’m searching the carpet for a good reason as to why I just became Peter, looking up at this John crying out in the wilderness of this suburban grid we wind through.
Somewhere a rooster crows.
He’s only eight and already he gets the gravity of the mission. He’s boldly willing to tell them what they need to hear.
It was my fear of his potential rejection that would trade a muted message of grace for his fearless outright proclamation of the gospel message. My fear-stifled attempts, have only been tucked impersonally in store bought cards and spiraled cinnamon rolls baked once a year in a floppy throw-away pan.
He’s only eight, he’s got it so right already.
My own feeble faith flayed out and exposed, as I watch him embracing Christ in a bear hug of utter abandon.
The child becomes the teacher.
I climb the ladder to his bunk. Clearing my throat I grab hold of his hand, “You should tell them, baby”. I’m grabbing redemption.
“Who wouldn’t want to hear that good news”?
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.” Matthew 28:19-20
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