Well I am back in the office today and am happy to see my colleagues. I love my colleagues and am particularly fortunate in working in a place where everyone gets on and genuinely looks forward to catching up after a weekend. My colleagues are pretty much of similar age to me and so the social life is good. It also provides plenty of opportunity to get to know people properly.
Over the last few years it has become clear to me that my gifting is in personal evangelism. The opportunities put before me have been amazing. It just shows that God has quite a sense of humour…I am the kind of person who fears walking into a room of people, who fears people they don’t know talking to them, who would avoid a situation if it may mean talking in front of others (all of which situations arise in church as well as work). However, God has made me bold and determined in sharing my faith with others. My husband encourages me with this a lot – he is outgoing and thrives off the company of others yet finds it hard to share his faith and take opportunities.
It takes a long time to get alongside people and it’s not just a case of saying things at the right time. Most opportunities come along when you least expect them. I think this is God reminding me that He is in control! It’s a case of living the gospel out practically for example, offering to help a colleague overrun by work who has had to stay late, making a cup of tea for someone having a bad day (there’s nothing a cuppa can’t solve y’know!). Gaining people’s trust then brings along opportunities. On evenings out, most of my colleagues have asked questions about what I believe and how great to have chance to chat about it all.
The most incredible experience I had was when a colleague literally broke down crying in front of me questioning their entire existence and mortality. They know I am a christian but I had never really had chance to speak about it to them in the three years I’ve known them. I had been frustrated that they had never shown any interest. At times I had gone out of my way to be a friend to them and at times this had been very costly but I didn’t see any flickers in them at all. Then one day out of the blue everything changed and since then my colleague has been questioning everything! The hard work does pay off!
I don’t want to see my colleagues as projects though. I have been on the receiving end of that myself throughout univeristy. I genuinely care for my colleagues and I am not looking at every opportunity to convert them. Sometimes I think I spend too much time with them. I love going out with them at lunch times and after work. They are the people I laugh most with and the people I naturally get on with the best.
I do lose my way a little when I spend more time with them than christian friends. As a I talked about before, I start to envy them. When we go out they totally let go and have a great time albeit induced by alcohol. I have made a point of not drinking when with non christian friends. I may have the odd glass of wine but none of them have ever seen me drunk. In fact I haven’t been drunk since my non christian days at uni which is a while ago now! Anyway my point was that I don’t just let go and have a really good time which is what I sometimes so desperately want to do. Of course this has been a good thing as it’s these times when I would make bad choices. I work for a large global company which holds some pretty fabulous parties and this means staying overnight. They are evenings of carnage and inevitably people go back to to other people’s rooms despite having wives, husbands, partners at home. It’s so easy to get sucked in and think that this behaviour is ok. We are surrounded by it in society – it’s everywhere. Anyway, my point is that if I wasn’t a christian, I probably would not have walked away from situations that I have and I thank God hugely for that. He has helped me to be distinct and it’s often only in retrospect that I can see how I have been so well protected.
And it comes back to the same point -in my head I know how good God has been to me, but I get home in an evening and my thoughts are on myself. I want to be able to feel his goodness and be grateful for it, instead of thinking that it holds me back from doing what I want to do.
