Chapter 2 - I'm A Most Unlikely Witness

I recently had a non-Christian friend share with me that her sister was gravely ill.  She said, "I know you have a relationship with 'The Man Upstairs' and I know he'll listen to you... so please pray for my sister."   Oomph.  It felt like a gut-punch; my breath was taken away.  Of course, she was expecting me to pray for her near-to-death sister to rise from her bed miraculously cured, with the doctors exclaiming they "just don't understand it."  On the other hand, she would be happy with a successful surgery that extended her sister's life a few years, too.  This was most certainly a last-ditch request (aren't they always?)  I felt so inadequate, so ineffectual.  Sure (I said), I'll pray.  And hey (I'm thinking), of course I'd love it if God always did whatever I asked him, whenever I asked him, sort of like a genie in a bottle.

But the reality is:  my God is so beyond that.  As Jo says, we don't just have a message to share, we have a Person to introduce.  We've encountered the dead-alive Jesus, and our lives have never been the same.

So why am I afraid?  Why do I feel like an Unlikely Witness?  What would my friend think if I appeared (to quote Jo) "sweaty, hysterical and wild" proclaiming that I've seen the Lord?

In Matthew's account, the risen Jesus met the amazed women and told them, "Do not be afraid.  Go and tell..."   This same Jesus says in John 10:28, "I give [my believers] eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand."  Not only has He risen, but now WE never have to fear death again.

This message of eternity reminds me of Ecclesiastes 3:10-11:  "I have seen the burden God has laid on men.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

My heart breaks for my friend and her sister.  My greatest prayer is that they come to know the resurrected Jesus; I pray God draws them to Himself.  I did gently tell my friend that she, too, could join me at the foot of the cross.  (That's the only reason God listens to me, after all.)  And perhaps God was meeting her in this place of brokenness to introduce her to Himself.  But I haven't heard back.  Yet.

So please pray with me, and let's pray for each other, that God would make us faithful, if "unlikely," witnesses in this broken world.  And please pray for my friend and her sister, that their desire for eternity would become Personal.