Book Feature

Patient and Persuasive Evangelism

By Christine Wood

Patience seems to be a quality many of us want to have. But most of us balk at the actual process of learning to be patient. I don’t recommend having a brain aneurysm as a good lesson, but that is what taught me the deepest lessons about patience. The grueling reality of being a hospital patient for a month only to be released into a slow-moving recovery taught me a great deal.

My lesson began while holding a stretch in a fitness class. The next thing I knew, 15 women were standing over me, their faces etched with concern. I don’t remember the helicopter ride to the UCLA Medical Center. I don’t remember any of my three weeks’ stay there except the moans coming from fellow patients in the intensive-care unit.

Once I was at the rehabilitation facility, I started the arduous process of regaining my abilities through physical, speech and occupational therapies. I couldn’t write, type or even walk straight. My mind had to be retrained in “divergent thinking.” When I came home, all my time was organized around getting the proper rest and being taken to my various therapy appointments; driving was out of the question.

Going from an active lifestyle to that of an invalid was extremely difficult for me until God spoke to me during a time of prayer when I had poured out my complaints. “This aneurysm isn’t about you, Chris, it’s about me.”

Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t really suffered great pain, at least none that I remembered. There were things about my life that would never be the same, but whose life remains unchanged? I was fortunate to be alive at all. Very few people survive the assault my brain experienced or the eight hours of surgery that followed. I work hard at recovery and to do it, I have simply had to learn to be patient with myself.

God’s words to me fit well into the model for evangelism. “Evangelism is not about you, Chris, it’s about me.”

God will bring people to us that we, at first, don’t think we are qualified to evangelize. Perhaps we feel too busy. Or maybe they are more talented, too far from God, too educated or even not educated enough. God puts particular people in our paths for their sake and for ours. We learn patience with them as we learn how to persuade their minds, hearts and behaviors to come to Jesus Christ and serve him as king.

We can learn so much from Paul, the first evangelist and missionary to the Gentiles. He traveled throughout a world replete with dangers, disease and a pantheon of oppressive gods. Here’s how he described his means of persuasion and the audience he addressed:

Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled by those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:1-6).

It is important to take not of the information Paul gives us here because it applies to how we must evangelize. Mercy was his motivation for committing to evangelism. Yes, it was a seemingly impossible task for Paul, but he was compelled because he saw his audience as spiritually dying patients and himself as being sent by God to them, dispensing the Master’s remedy. Since evangelism wasn’t about him as much as it was about God, he trusted God for the heart and stamina to continue on.

Nothing in his persuasion strategy was devious. He refused to manipulate his audience. The power of his testimony came from a life consistent with the true words he taught. This is a crucial observation because his enemy, Satan, always is devious; he is the “father of lies” (John 8:44). His strategy is to keep people in spiritual darkness. When we evangelize, we offer God’s truth to expose Satan’s charade. But Christians can only share the light they carry. Nothing pierces the veil more powerfully than our own fresh experience with God. So it seems reasonable that Satan will do everything he can to dull our experience of God and disturb our quiet time with him, the place where God wants to speak clearly to us.

Personally, I don’t know how to respond to Paul’s powerful words except by attempting to apply them one day at a time, one person at a time. It’s the only way I can do the job. Daily, in order to maintain my focus on God. I need to seek fresh guidance through reading Scripture and prayer. For it is God who “made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Every day, I must “put on mercy” and every day I must look for the opportunities God gives me to practice it. In every situation I must patiently live out God’s character in both word and deed. Satan will do all he can to oppose me but, every day, all day, God’s strength is sufficient for me to overcome obstacles.

Excerpted from Character Witness (©2003, InterVarsity Press) with permission. Christine Wood is a speaker and writer based near Los Angeles, California. She is also the author of Life Design curriculum.