In the summer of 2010, I met a kid named Nick at a summer camp where I worked. When I met Nick, I decided that I wasn’t going to let this connection slip past me. For a semester I forced myself to call him week after week and invite him to my youth group (if you didn’t know, phone calls were a major phobia for me). Many weeks he wouldn’t come; on weeks that he did, he seemed lost from the lessons.
When I left my youth group for college, I seriously wondered if anything I had done would last. I kept Nick along with a couple other friends on a short list of people I was committed to pray for through the school year.
Coming back for the summer, I saw Nick weekly during Ultimate Frisbee with friends from church. There wasn’t any incredible ministry, just living life and being a friend to him. When my friend’s graduation rolled around, I was convicted to ask if there was any way I could pray for Nick. When I saw an opportunity to sit down with him, he surprised me by starting the conversation.
“I’ve never really told you this before,” he said sitting next to me, “but I just wanted to thank you for all you did for me.” He then told me how thankful he was that I had invited him to youth group, how thankful he was that I had introduced him to some guys that are now some of his closest friends. All this paled when he told me how much closer he was to Jesus because I had lived and loved like Christ.
So what about you? Do you wonder if your actions really show through to your friends? Take a rain check on your worries and keep living as Christ to them. We honestly cannot overestimate the power of praying for our friends and living as Christ’s ambassador with them.
2 Corinthians 5:20
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.