I was in a college computer lab in Denton, TX when I overheard a phone conversation that would change my life. I was drawn to the way God was mentioned. The young woman on the phone was describing God’s nature and professing His faithfulness. She sounded like she actually knew Him. When she hung up the phone, I asked, “Do you really think God is like that?” With gentleness, she responded to my question with a simple “Yes.”
How could I, someone who faithfully participated in church, even pose this question? Why did I not know God in the same way that she did? Sherrell, a sophomore in college, admired Christ and credited Him for things that I would have never thought God cared about or was involved in. She explained to me who God was, and how He impacted her everyday life. Sherrell then invited me to her church.
The church was not at all what I expected, but I sat eagerly without criticism because I wanted to know more about what I was missing. The sermon was on financial stewardship, yet somehow I walked away knowing that God was relational, and He cared about me in a way that no one else could. Thus began my journey to fully surrender to God.
Sherrell, a fearless college sophomore, freely professed her love for God without knowing that her conversation was reaching far beyond the other end of the phone line. She didn’t know how sharing God’s love for her to one person would be a moment in time that would be repeatedly shared to many. She didn’t know how God would use her words, but that didn’t stop her from sharing.
How I wish to be so consumed by the love of Christ to profess His goodness in all that I do and say. I try to recreate this moment by intentionally inviting friends to restaurants to share testimonies of how we were redeemed through Christ, in hopes that someone may overhear conversations like I overheard Sherrell’s. I’ve had the chance to share the Gospel with three strangers after such discussions and immediately walk two of them to the MBC Silver Spring Campus to introduce them to the leaders there.
Instead of keeping this method to myself, I used it to challenge our summer Multiply staff group by purchasing Panera gift cards for each group member and challenging them to invite a friend to coffee to share how they came to know Christ as their Savior. This initiative has caught on, and I hope it has multiplied… I’m even more thrilled to one day, in Heaven, see how many people were impacted through one college students uncontainable love for God. #gomultiply
