Why I Don’t Witness

Several of my good friends have challenged me on my assertion that I don’t pray aloud in public and I don’t witness to people. So maybe I need to explain. Because I am, in fact, under orders. My Lord’s last words on this earth were “Go and teach all nations, baptizing … and teaching them to obey everything I have taught you.” (Matthew 28:16-20) So, I have been asked, why are you refusing to obey a direct command?

It’s a longish story, and parts of it may sound silly. But it does prove very clearly that the things that we experience as children can have a lasting and detrimental effect on us long after we grow  up.

I made my profession of faith at the age of five. Many years later, I wondered  if it could have been real. If I could really have understood what I was doing. My Dad says that he is certain I did, because the first time I asked to go forward in church, he would not let me, because he thought I was too young. I was apparently so upset about being held back that when we got home from church, he quizzed me deeply about what “getting saved” meant. And I knew the answers — apparently I knew the answers well enough that Daddy didn’t think I was just “parroting.” So the next week, he allowed me to go to the altar and make my profession of faith public. And, shortly thereafter, I was baptised.

I don’t really remember much of my childhood, but both of my parents agree that I was very excited and vocal about my salvation. That I frequently volunteered to pray aloud at home and in church groups, and that I shared my faith freely. I do remember one of the illustrations that they gave me: When I was about eight and my younger brother about four, a neighbour hosted a Child Evangelism Fellowship Five-Day Club in her backyard during the summer. I went with my brother. I wanted him to be saved, too, so when they did the invitation prayer at the end of the week, after the Wordless Book presentation, and they asked anyone who wanted to ask Jesus into their heart to raise their hands, I (being a good big sister) raised my brother’s hand for him. Of course, he began to struggle with me, and the leader had to separate us. She told my mom about it, and mom and I had a long talk about how you can’t drag people into the Kingdom, no matter how much you may love them.

I also remember, very clearly, the two incidents that led to my abandoning both public prayer and witnessing.

The prayer incident, sadly, happened at church. I was ten or eleven at the time. I had volunteered to pray and something I said struck some of the other kids as amusing. They all started jeering at me. One of my biggest challenges in life is that I care, very deeply, what other people think of me. And kids are cruel. These kids were very cruel. So cruel that I vowed never to publicly pray in a group again.

The witnessing problem actually went in two phases. The first thing happened shortly after the prayer incident. I really enjoyed playing with our next-door neighbours, and I wanted them to know Jesus. So I started to share about salvation with them one day while we were playing. And they made fun of me for believing all that “superstitious nonsense.” I didn’t know how to respond to their objections and I got confused and embarrassed. That shut me up about my faith for about ten years.

The second incident was when I was in my mid-twenties. I was working for a para-church organization, and one of the requirements was that each staff member gave his or her personal testimony once a year — it wasn’t necessarily your salvation story, but might be somet particular truth that God was teaching you  at that time. My first couple of these went well, but the third time I did it, someone misunderstood something I said, and it upset some people, and a big ruckus was raised. I ended up in tears, feeling like I wasn’t really saved and doubting the very foundations of everything I believed. That was a very dark time. And I decided then that it was dangerous for me to share, because people either didn’t understand me or thought I was stupid.

My bigger concern was the misunderstanding. I don’t want to turn someone off permanently to the beautiful love and grace of God because I communicate poorly. I don’t want to teach someone error or heresy, misleading and confusing them. I have a horror of being a false teacher. And I don’t want, in my zeal for truth, to turn someone off by coming out harshly against their pet sin. (And we all have one of those … me included.)

I also didn’t want to be one of those judgmental, Bible-thumping zealots who whack sinners over the head with scripture while acting all holy and self-righteous. I’ve had that done to me, and I didn’t like it. And I’m not all holy and self-righteous, anyway. I’m a flawed and damaged human being, with human failings and a sin nature. The only thing that saves me is that Jesus covers all my faults with His righteousness, so that God sees me through “Jesus-coloured glasses.”

So, after a lot of study, I decided to follow my Lord’s example. Jesus didn’t whack people over the head or chase them down and tell them they were going to Hell if they didn’t follow Him. He just lived His life as an example, and answered people’s questions when they asked. Then He let them make their own decisions about what they would do with the teachings He presented. He also tended to form relationships with people before confronting them with sin and their need for repentance.

My favourite example of this is the story of Zaccheus. I like Zach. He was a short guy — so short he had to climb a tree so he could see Jesus when He came walking through the town. I can identify with vertical deficiency. And people pretty much despised him because of his job. He was a tax collector. They tended to skim a bit off the top — to round your tax bill up just a bit to augment their salaries. So Zach’s job made him pretty unpopular with the people in his town. Anyway, here’s Zach up in this tree, and Jesus comes walking by and invites Himself to Zach’s house for a visit and a meal. The story doesn’t tell us what Jesus talked about at the meal. But it does tell us that Zach was so affected by the visit that he publicly promised to pay back everyone whom he had cheated (with interest!), and to stop skimming and live honestly from then on.

Obviously, something about Jesus influenced Zach to mend his ways and live a more righteous life. But Jesus didn’t come out all “Yo, Zach, you are a bad man, stealing money from all these hard-working people so that you can have a life of luxury and ease. You’re gonna go to Hell if you don’t stop this stealing and make it right.” No. Jesus just invited Himself for lunch and treated Zach like a regular guy. Maybe it was just that fact, that Jesus didn’t care that everyone else thought He was terrible for being nice to this rotten thief. Jesus didn’t make Zach feel like he was a horrible, worthless, dirty person. He showed unconditional love and acceptance to Zaccheus, and Zach responded with repentance and restitution. 

The way Jesus dealt with Zaccheus is the way I want to interact with people. Not judging or condemning. Just loving. Just living life as it comes. I hope that I live in such a way that people will want to know my “secret.” If someone asks me why I do certain things, or how I keep on keeping on in the face of some challenge or others, I’ll explain. But I’m not volunteering. I figure that if I’m supposed to share with someone, God can inspire them to ask me a question.

And on the very rare occasions that I do feel an urge to confront someone about an issue, I hold back unless I know that there is a relationship so that the other person knows I’m not judging them and don’t think I’m better than they are. Establishing relationships means showing others your vulnerable spots and admitting your faults. And if I’ve shared with you that I struggle with anger or envy, you’ll feel more open about my addressing your struggles in those areas, because you know that I understand. That’s why the Bible is so careful to tell us that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are. (Hebrews 4:15) Because then we know that He understands how hard it is to resist and conquer sin.

I figure that one day God’s going to call me on this fear of mine, because He’s a God of courage and boldness, not of fear and timidity. But I’m content to wait for His timing on that. I have plenty of other issues to work on, and God  is patient, for which I am profoundly grateful.

Tags: challenges, Christianity, faith, fear, Religion, True Stories