Reaching out...

Ultimately the goal of our Christian walk is to go and make disciples - after worshipping and loving God of course. I suspect I am not alone in feeling inadequate in this area. The first evangelical challenge of God52 was therefore a big challenge, not just for me.

I take some consolation in reading about the efforts of other bloggers in the challenge of praying for a non-believer. Many of the bloggers are full time ministry workers who you might expect to excel at this sort of thing. It was with some measure of relief therefore that I saw how others were struggling to fulfill this task. Everything from offering to pray for people via a Twitter hash code, to stealth praying for people - they won't know what hit them!

Don't get me wrong. My missionary life has led me to many opportunities to pray for, and with, non-believers. Yet I am still afraid to declare my beliefs aloud. Not to mention the fact that these days I hardly even come into contact with non-believers. All my friends are believers, I work with believers, I serve in worship in my church... with believers. So it's already a bit of a challenge.

Put it to God though and He will make an opening. I went on a very important trip to buy something. On this trip I was praying, asking God for favour to get a good price. I threw in a prayer at the end for an opportunity to be a witness. I thought I could use the interaction with the sales clerk to initiate a conversation that might allow me to pray for him/her. Plan in place I entered the shop... and was approached by a woman with head covering....Muslim!... In an instant all my resolve fled. Any plan I had to use my missionary status to negotiate a better price was crushed! How could I share with this woman? How could I dare pray for her?

In hindsight I realise I had been given an awesome opportunity and I blew it! I should have entered with boldness and courage and shared what God had placed on my heart, but I fled into the security of a stealth prayer. I'm not knocking quietly praying for people without their knowledge, but in this case it was just an excuse to avoid standing up for my faith.

This God52 stuff is a hard! Sadly I seem to be failing more than I'm succeeding. Hopefully as the year progresses I'll improve and learn.

Prayer #Fail

Prayer has never been a strong point for me. This challenge really highlighted that. The task was to focus prayer on just one thing for the whole week. Jesus taught that we should be persistent in our requests to God, even when we did not seem to be hearing an answer.

I started the challenge strong, as always, but quickly faded as the week went on. The discipline to set aside large chunks of time to devote exclusively to pray is hard enough as it is. To then use that time to pray only for one request, over and over and over. It exposed my weak discipline!

The request I prayed for remains unanswered, so I'll be continuing to pray for it throughout the next few months. I guess you could say that, while I failed the specifics of this task, I did learn something after all. I learned that God enjoys hearing from us, even if we may feel like we're being repetitive.

Buying a car

So how does God help in buying a car. Sure he can miraculously have someone donate you a brand new one. Or he could prompt someone to give a large cash donation toward one. Or he could just do the unlikely as I have discovered twice now in the last year....

On returning from Turkey I was really keen to get involved with off-road rescue. Before going into mission work I was very involved in volunteering with an off-road rescue unit here in Johannesburg, and I was keen to get back into it. The problem; 4x4's are expensive and I only had about R40K to spend on a car. I am determined that I will never owe money on a car again, if I can help it and so a loan was not an option. Rather than worry, I put the problem to God...

On a visit to my folks I decided to take a look at second hand cars in Pietermaritzburg. I searched high and low for something that I could afford that was in reasonable condition. I wasn't looking for a 4x4 exactly. Then at one dealer I found a Hyundai, which looked pretty good, in my price range. So I asked for a test drive. And while I was waiting for the salesman to bring the keys I looked up across the road and, would you believe it? There stood a red Suzuki jeep (4x4) for sale! I had yet to see any 4x4 I could afford, but something in my mind said: "Yes, that's it!"

But I'm a practical guy, so I decided to test drive the Hyundai anyway, because that was more practical. I got 2 blocks up the road before blowing the head gasket! It was almost as if God was saying: "Oh no you don't! You asked me and I've gone to great lengths to prepare a car for you. Now you will buy it!" I left the car for the salesman to sort out and walked back down the road.

Now the little doubter in me was saying: "It's useless! You won't be able to afford it!"

I look; The price: "R39000"

Little doubter: "Yes, but for that price it's probably got big issues!"

I look; Exterior very good; Interior also very good; low mileage.

Little doubter: "It's not going to be mechanically sound!"

I take it for a test drive. The salesman says it's been recently reconditioned. It's a bit slow, but it only has a 1000cc engine. So what can you expect? Mechanically - no problems.

Little doubter: "..."

And there it was. In answer to my prayer God arranged a red Suzuki jeep 4x4 for under R40k in very good condition down in Pietermaritzburg. Just for me! I drove that jeep for 1 year without any troubles, enjoying my time back in the Off-road rescue unit. God truly is great.

(Next in Part 2: Practical Paul makes a return!)