Then Live Like It

One of the many questions that has rattled around in my head for years is the success rate of door-to-door evangelism.

Or fear-based evangelism.

When I walk Lily on the weekends for our longer walks around town, we pass a few groups of people handing out pamphlets about…

Well.

I don’t actually know what they’re about.

Because I don’t stop.

I don’t take the pamphlet.

I don’t interact.

But I imagine they are pamphlets for some denomination of some religion or some church.

And I don’t really see anyone else taking them either.

To be fair, these particular people aren’t pushy.

Thankfully.

The same cannot be said for everyone trying to spread the word of their religion.

Especially the ones using fear to motivate people.

I went to a parade once where I saw what I still believe was one of the saddest sights.

Protestors stood along the route yelling at people to repent of their sins.

Signs.

Megaphones.

Warnings.

Condemnation.

And I remember thinking how sad it was.

And how ineffective it seemed.

Again, I haven’t researched the success rates here.

Maybe people are going home from parades saying, “You know what? That angry man with the megaphone made some excellent points.”

I just don’t think it’s common.

Because fear rarely changes people in the way you want them to change.

I used to drink.

Now I don’t.

Much, anyway.

I used to eat pretty terribly.

Well…actually, it was pretty good.

But unhealthy.

That’s what I mean.

I used to eat unhealthily.

I have always eaten good.

Lol.

I never used to work out.

Now I do almost daily.

What prompted those changes?

Something shifted in me.

Maybe I watched someone else have more energy or do things I couldn’t do.

Maybe I started paying attention to how different things made me feel.

Maybe my tastes changed.

Maybe I just started wanting a different life than the one I was living.

But I can tell you what didn’t do it.

Nobody yelled at me.

Nobody handed me a pamphlet.

And nobody rang my doorbell and asked if I had accepted cardio as my personal lord and savior.

Real change in me requires a real change in me.

And you can’t rush it.

At work, my coworkers and I talk about food constantly.

“What are you having for lunch?”

“What did you bring?”

“Can you grab me something while you’re out?”

“What are you eating??”

And often, my younger coworkers scoff at my food.

They scoff at a lot of things about me, actually.

But that’s beside the point.

They say my food looks too healthy.

Fair.

When I was in my twenties, my plates were largely brown and tan.

The colors of french fries.

Chicken nuggets.

And Coke.

When I was their age, I wouldn’t have eaten what I eat now either.

But my tastes changed.

My gut changed.

I started thinking about how food made me feel instead of only how it tasted.

I could not have cared less about that at 22.

In fact, I find it a little sad when a 20-something is hyper-focused on health food.

LIVE YOUR LIFE, CHILDREN.

Eventually, though, maybe something will shift for them too.

Enough information.

Enough stomach aches.

Enough tired days.

Enough paying attention.

And slowly, their minds may start to change.

Or maybe one day someone will scream about vegetables at them on the side of the road and they’ll make a 180-degree turn toward clean eating.

I’m sure it’s happened.

But I don’t think that’s how most of us change.

I think change usually starts much smaller.

An idea takes root.

It sits there for a while.

Maybe a long while.

Then eventually, we start walking toward it.

Of course, there are people who quit drinking cold turkey.

People who change their diets and never look back.

People who join a gym, go every day, and apparently just keep leveling up for the rest of their lives.

God bless them.

For the rest of us, change looks more like a squiggly line.

Hilly terrain.

Steps forward.

Steps backward.

Wrong turns.

U-turns.

Sitting down on the side of the road for a while because we’re tired.

Then getting up and trying again.

And I’ve found that most real change happens in me when I’m finally ready for it.

When God opens my heart to something.

I can hear the same message over and over and over again.

Nothing.

Then one random Tuesday, I hear essentially the same thing I’ve heard twenty times before and suddenly—

Oh.

There it is.

Now I hear it.

Maybe that’s because God knows us individually.

Maybe He knows exactly how stubborn each of us is.

Maybe He knows what will reach me won’t reach you.

So He keeps working.

Through people.

Through circumstances.

Through consequences.

Through little nudges we ignore seventeen times before finally paying attention on the eighteenth.

And He isn’t necessarily working on the same thing in all of us at the same time.

Maybe He’s working with me on gossip.

You on lying.

Someone else on finances.

Someone else on patience.

Someone else on forgiveness.

Someone else on pride.

And I think where I get myself into trouble is when I become very interested in what He’s supposed to be working on in you.

Because that is considerably easier than dealing with what He’s working on in me.

So when I see protestors at a parade screaming—

CONFESS.

YOUR.

SINS.

—my first thought is:

Who are you to tell everyone else what they need to work on?

I want to tell them they need to be more loving.

More compassionate.

Kinder.

Less judgmental.

I want to tell them that if they really want people to know God, maybe screaming condemnation at strangers isn’t the best introduction.

And maybe I’m right.

But here’s the annoying part.

If I think they need to be more loving…

then I need to be more loving.

If I think they need to spend less time judging everyone else’s behavior…

then I probably need to spend less time judging theirs.

Because I don’t get to demand that someone else look inward while I’m busy staring at them.

I have to look at me.

What is God working on in me?

Where am I withholding grace?

Where am I being unkind?

Where have I decided someone else’s sin is more offensive than mine?

Where am I so busy identifying what everyone else needs to change that I don’t notice the thing He’s been trying to change in me?

That doesn’t mean I never speak up.

Sometimes love is standing between someone and the hate being spewed at them.

Sometimes love is saying, “No. This isn’t okay.”

Sometimes love is loud.

But oftentimes, I think love is much quieter.

It’s being the person I wish someone else would be.

It’s showing grace instead of demanding someone else learn it first.

It’s remembering that I am not responsible for forcing someone else’s transformation.

I am responsible for mine.

Maybe that’s why the pamphlets have never made much sense to me.

Because the biggest changes in my life haven’t happened because someone scared me into becoming different.

They happened slowly.

Quietly.

After seeds were planted.

After life humbled me.

After I was ready.

After God worked on my heart in whatever weird, patient, repetitive way He knew would finally reach me.

And maybe my job isn’t to make someone else change.

Maybe my job is to keep letting Him change me.

And then live like it.