You Were Not Made for Comfort

It seems many Christians have forgotten Jesus’ command, to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel”.

It’s understandable, really, when so many of us have so much to do and we can barely handle what is on our own plates.

It’s hard to imagine adding sharing the gospel with the entire world to our never-ending “to do” list.

Nonetheless, Jesus did command those who love Him to share the gospel with the entire world — and it should make us feel a bit uncomfortable when we evaluate our own response to that command.

Before I was married, I was traveling the country sharing the good news about sex and faith and the Catholic Church. Stepping out of my comfort zone and sharing the good news with strangers seemed to come more easily then.

Slowly, though, as I began having kids, my world began to grow smaller and “evangelization” efforts turned towards my own brood of kiddos.

Don’t get me wrong. I know my world was meant to grow smaller, as John and I focused our efforts on doing our best to raise our kids well.

God gave me the grace to know in my heart that it would be no good to save the world and lose my kids in the process, and so I was at peace focusing on my own little world around me.

As my children have grown older, though, I have been reminded of the call God has placed upon all of our hearts to share the good news with the world.

After all, my job is also to prepare my own kids to go out into the world and share the good news as well — so how exactly does a parent do that?

It’s something I’ve been pondering a lot lately.

First and foremost, I think it is important to make our homes a place of prayer, even in the early years of life with littles.

We need to let our kids see us praying and reading scripture and really seeking God and His will in our lives.

They need to hear us speak about God and Mary and the Saints in familiar ways.

Our relationship with God should be a personal one and we need to encourage our kids to discover their own unique relationship with Jesus.

And that personal, unique relationship with Christ should change us and light a fire within our hearts that blazes so brightly we can’t help but share it with others.

Even if we are lacking in love (which most of us are), we can’t let that be our excuse to not share the good news with the world around us.

If we want the fire of Divine Love to blaze within our hearts, then we must step out in faith and allow our relationship with Christ to transform us and push us to share the good news with others.

That transformation will include a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit and a willingness to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Which is why we need to begin to get comfortable with being uncomfortable — with stretching ourselves beyond our comfort zones and maybe even getting a little cray-cray for Jesus.

And I know it can be awkward to share the Gospel with others, but darn it, we are being downright selfish if we keep all of this good news to ourselves!

People are thirsting –literally dying of thirst — for the good news of Christ and to know how greatly He loves them.

You, my friend, are the very person to share His Love and to offer His freedom to the people you encounter on the daily.

This weekend, I had a friend who organized an initiative to do just that — to go and reach out to the stranger among us and invite them to come to Church and be introduced or reintroduced to the burning Love that God has for each person.

I have to be honest. I didn’t want to join in.

I didn’t want to feel awkward and walk the streets in 90 degree weather and ask people how I could pray for them or invite them to our Church for adoration.

I didn’t want to say “yes” because I’d rather sit in the comfort of my own home and love God the way that I want to love Him.

But I know in my heart that God has asked us to love Him by sharing the good news with all of creation — and this was a way to respond to that call.

So I decided to stretch myself a bit this weekend and join in and invite people to come to our beautiful Church and encounter Christ in a real and profound way.

I knew it would be good for both me and my older kids to participate, and so we took a leap of faith and said, “yes”.

Let me tell you, it was a beautiful experience.

We started in adoration at our Church and then we went out into the streets of our town and invited the people we encountered to come to our Church or to share their prayer intentions with us.

I took my girls with me and John took the boys with him and everywhere we went, we just started talking to people and asking them if we could pray for them — and it was crazy, because everybody had something they asked us to pray for.

There was not one rude response from anybody, and even the one girl who declined our offer to pray for her intention was sweet about it.

One of the more unexpected moments happened when I took a break and was watching some men spray painting an alleyway.

I decided to ask them if they had any prayer intentions that I could pray for, and they began to share about some of the heartaches and struggles in their lives.

We got to bring them something cold to drink and take their prayer intentions down and one guy even gave me a hug as I left.

It just goes to show you, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

The whole morning was an unexpectedly beautiful experience of sincerely trying to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and sharing the good news with the people around us.

It was highly uncharacteristic of me to be so bold, and I have to say, my girls and I had some truly beautiful conversations. It has reminded me that I need to stretch myself more often.

You want to know the most beautiful part of it all?

God gave me a small glimpse at the love that He had for each and every one of those people I encountered.

They were total strangers to me, but I could honestly feel God’s love for them burning within my heart in the moment!

It was beautiful and it also reaffirmed how much He loves me, as well.

Even now, I tear up thinking about my experience of God’s love for the strangers we encountered — His love is real and it is unfathomable in its depth and intensity.

You and I have a role to play in connecting Jesus to those who need Him most — and this weekend reminded me that there are so many people who desperately need Jesus.

He is calling to you and me to bring as many people as possible to Him so that they can experience His Love and be set free from their burdens.

Jesus is in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world, just waiting to love the desperate, the lost, the burdened, and to set them free.

He needs us to be willing to share His Love and His freedom with the people around us.

He just needs us to say, “yes” and to be open to where that “yes” brings us.

So, I thought I’d share that little experience with you, and just maybe it will give you that little push to gather some friends and do something a little bold to share the good news with the world around you.

Who knows what the Holy Spirit will do in and through you, if you just say “yes” to stepping out of your comfort zone and seeing where it takes you.

No time like the present.

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound”.

Isaiah 61:1

Sharing over at Kelly’s