Witnessing When We Don't Want To
Scripture Reading — Matthew 5:43-48
“Your Father in heaven … causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good …”
—Matthew 5:45
A group from our church went on a mission trip to Belize to help build a Christian school. One morning one of our local coworkers arrived at the jobsite exhausted. The day before, he had taken his father to the hospital for heart trouble. Lacking a car, he had transported him in a large cargo basket on the front of a modified bicycle.
At 2 o’clock in the morning the hospital called to release him, which required picking him up right away. Since biking through the city was unsafe at that hour, the man phoned his pastor in the middle of the night, asking to borrow his car. By God’s grace the man’s father returned home safely and in good health.
If I had been in our coworker’s shoes, I would have been fuming at the hospital staff. But our coworker was thankful.
Jesus reminds his disciples about God`s goodness to all people. God is good to—and even through—those who might make us upset.
In what ways has God been good to you through someone who has irritated or angered you? God is good, Jesus says, even to people who persecute Christians. They may grieve us terribly, but that gives us all the more reason to pray for and love them as unconditionally as God does.
How can you mirror God`s goodness today in a way that is winsome for Christ?
Loving Father, thank you for the ways we are blessed through Christians and non-Christians alike. Please turn all hearts toward you, so that you will be praised. Amen.
About the author — Daryl DeKlerk
Daryl DeKlerk pastors a church in Jarvis, Ontario. He is thankful for a sabbatical that enabled him to study the theme of Grace-filled Christian Witness. Daryl and his wife have three young children who keep them on their toes and on their knees in prayer.
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