Are You Going the Wrong Way?

Russian Road Sign“‘Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.'” (Mark 16:15)

MISSING A TURN

“In [an] NCAA cross-country championship held in Riverside, California, 123 of the 128 runners missed a turn. One competitor, Mike Delcavo, stayed on the 10,000 meter course and began waving for fellow runners to follow him. Delcavo was able to convince only four other runners to go with him. Asked what his competitors thought of his mid-race decision not to follow the crowd, Delcavo responded, ‘They thought it was funny that I went the right way.’ Delcavo was one who ran correctly.” (“Which Way?”: contributed by Kent Lenard to sermoncentral.com.)

SHARING OUR FAITH

As I was reading this story I couldn’t help but think about sharing our faith with the people around us. I wonder if sometimes we’ve overcomplicated doing it in this sense: like somehow we are responsible for what can only ultimately be a person’s own decision to follow or not follow Christ.

The fact is people’s response to the gospel isn’t our responsibility as the above story makes clear. Delcavo knew the right way to go and waved to the rest of the runners to go that way. But short of going over to each of them, tying them up and carrying them on his own shoulders against their will, 123 runners weren’t going to go with him.

THE RIGHT WAY

In like manner, our responsibility sharing our faith begins and ends with letting others know the right path to take. (Of course, we ourselves must be on the path first!)

And so it’s not about cornering men and women or manipulating them with guilt or sugarcoating the gospel to somehow bring people to Christ, etc. Quite to the contrary. It’s simply about pointing the way and letting God do the rest.

Are you going the wrong way?

“‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father (gets to Heaven) but through Me (Jesus Christ).'” (John 14:6)

(Russian road sign picture file above is in the public domain: click here.)

You might also be interested in:

About Pastor Mike

Pastor Mike is making the most of web technologies to encourage disciples. A self-proclaimed “twitterholic,” one twitter follower describes him as the “jogging, blogging, tweeting Pastor.” Visits to Pastor Mike’s blog (A Heart For God) number in the hundreds of thousands. His video blogs have been viewed over a half a million times.