Bold for Christ?

I blew it! I completely screwed up! You know those opportunities staring you in the face and you completely walk away? I recently had one.

See on my DTS I felt pretty bold for Christ. It wasn't so bad going into the streets and sharing God with backpackers, teenagers, and random "townies". Probably because I knew I wouldn't be back and they'd never see me again (well, not until heaven I hoped.) It was also easier because I was with 36 other people doing the same thing. We'd pray together, encourage each other, and go.

That's all great but God wants us to be bold for Him as much in Jerusalem (home) as in Samaria (further away areas).

I was sitting at Java reading my Bible, journaling, sipping my Bowl of Soul before meeting with a friend to talk about her trip to Africa. A girl came in and sat close to me.... obnoxiously close. I was annoyed, of all the places in the coffee shop to sit it had to be within my personal bubble! This was MY "quiet time"! (Yeah, I still have a pretty selfish heart.)

Then (thinking somehow I own this little space of coffee shop) she has the nerve to start talking to people who pass through, apparently she knows them. I'm sitting so close I cannot help but hear her conversation. She's probably my age (mid-late 20's). Less than a year ago she woke up and was completely blind in one eye. The Dr's had trouble diagnosing it. It was an eye disease so rare hardly anyone in the US actually has it. There is nothing they can do. She was sharing with her friend about how terrified she was when it happened and she had to fly back to Boise from California where she is living all alone to be with her parents. She sounded so helpless and upset over her condition. It also seemed clear she wasn't a follower of Christ.

Her friend left the shop and she sat quietly typing on her laptop.

God prodded me, "I want you to pray for her." So I prayed. "No, I want you to go over to her and pray for her."

"God, are you kidding me? This place is busy but not busy enough no one would notice!"

"She needs to hear about ME and be healed!"

"Wait, God, you want me to go over to this stranger in this coffee shop I frequent, share You, and pray out loud for healing for a girl who isn't a Christian?"

"YES"

"Are you kidding me!?! They are going to think I'm nuts!"

I tried to negotiate with God.... perhaps sitting this close my silent prayers would heal her. A sign... I need a clear sign. (Okay, I heard God loud and clear on that one, I just wanted a miracle, like no one else but me and her in the coffee shop, God forbid people judge me!)

God wouldn't let me out of it but I was full of excuses (Oh, Moses, I know your pain.) What's more is not only was I afraid of man but what if I prayed for healing and God didn't heal her?

In the time I sat negotiating with God knowing clearly what He wanted me to do, my friend showed up and the girl left the coffee shop.

The worst part of all. I know I failed. I know what I was suppose to do. I wonder how cool and what a testament it would be to be able to sit here and glorify God for healing a stranger's blindness and bringing her.... if not those around who witnessed to Christ! And if she hadn't been healed? She still would have heard about God and had hope to cling to! But, deep down, I know she would have been. I let a person go blind because I was afraid of people's opinions! Seriously!?!

Worst of all, I possibly let people perish because of my fear. What's blindness compared to eternity separated from God? My prayer now.... don't let her suffer because I failed to move! I wonder how often God sees this in all of us. In our comfy churches. How much of the world hasn't heard because we were not bold for Christ? In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth?