One thing that develops as we share our faith is a thickening of the skin; a resistance to outside pressures. When hitting the streets and talking with people, my goal is to simply follow the Holy Spirit’s lead in speaking the truth in love to help people understand their sinfulness and God’s plan to save them from sin and His wrath. Occasionally, individuals ask us to go somewhere else, move across the street, etc. I ignorantly obeyed a couple of times, but then began to resist unless they were police. That brought confrontation and the thicker skin.
Last Saturday evening, we had a productive time in the bar/party area of Old Town in Wichita
Toward midnight, when the party people had made things more…. umm… interesting, it seemed the Holy Spirit was leading us to read Scripture. We stood on a footstool on a sidewalk and began reading through Hebrews 1 & 2 as people walked by with abundant room. Most seemed to ignore us, but they could hear what we were reading. After only a few moments, a nearly panicked man quickly walked up and frantically said, “What are you doing?!? What are you doing?!? You shouldn’t be doing this!! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to push religion on people?!?”
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
This man is not our enemy. I hope to speak with him sometime. We recognized this event to be what I call a demonic distraction the instant he came up to us. The man was a pawn in a small spiritual battle. Our true enemy, satan, didn’t want Scripture to be read in public. satan will try to keep you from reading your Bible, too, so go read it and give him a miserable day.
My first response to the man was to ignore him and keep reading. This may look rude in practice, but I never want to stop doing what our true enemy hates. This is where the thick skin develops. The man kept trying to distract us by ranting about the earth’s population, so I turned to him and told him firmly and clearly that I would keep reading. The man immediately turned and walked away.
“Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7
Was this little spiritual skirmish fun? Not at all! It was a stressful few minutes. Now I look back on it and think, wow, the Lord helped and protected us and maybe I handled the situation correctly. Our skin is thicker and the Lord has already prepared us for the next battle.
“The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” Psalm 18:2
“Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:13-14
“Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” Ephesians 6:10-11
Thank you for reading! May God bless you and protect you in your battles.
