Mark

Last weekend, our first visitor from back east came to see us. It was my high school friend Mark. He came out for 4 days and we managed to break away to ski for a couple days at Taos. So what things did I take away from this visit:

1. With enough threats to my older two kids, I can get the house whipped into shape fairly quickly.
2. Either I'm not as young as I used to be… or skiing got a lot more physically demanding since the last time I went.
3. Mark has a lot of questions / criticisms / opinions that stand in the way of him accepting Jesus Christ.

Before being saved, I was a like-minded agnostic with Mark. He was the first person I ever witnessed to and he was quite shocked the first time I revealed to him that I was now a believer. Invariably, when we get together, at some point he'll still say something like "So… you still going to church?". Loaded in that question is the thought that maybe I'm just in a phase and soon I'll snap out of it. After this past weekend however, he may never ask that question again. At one point he even said, "I can tell that I'm never going to win this argument. You aren't coming back to agnosticism." I agreed with him but it struck me as a little odd that he thought we were arguing. We talked about faith and God and Jesus for at least a solid 10 hours during his visit. We talked about everything from evolution to the big bang to the resurrection. He's not a believer yet but he went back to Pennsylvania with a lot of questions and things that he wanted to look into.

So what are we praying about this Wednesday? Any and all of the following:

1. Evangelism in general - that we are following the command to go and make disciples.2. For seekers - that they continue seeking until they find the one true answer we've found. Mark's question "So… you still going to church?" has a lot in it. First, it is a seeking behavior and invites discussion (or argument depending on how you look at it). Second, he's checking up on my faith - the fact that time keeps making my faith stronger may be the pivotal testimony in his conversion. You may be able to think of people who would get the same impact from your growing faith.
3. For us - that we remember what it was like when we were seekers. For instance, I remember thinking discussions were arguments back when I was seeking.

Have a great week and a great fast.
Your brother,
Bob