By Laura Benson, The Salt Company Freshmen Women’s Ministry Leader,Ames
A few weeks ago, I found an empty table in a busy student area on campus. I had a couple of meetings set up for that afternoon, and was rushing to finish a couple of things before my first meeting. Before long, a guy leaned over and asked if he could sit at my table to eat his lunch. I said sure, barely looking up from my work. He sat down and after a brief silence, he started striking up a conversation. Great. Exactly what I needed.
Once he found out that I worked for a student ministry, he began asking about it. I realized then that I needed to throw off my sinful, selfish agenda and take the opportunity God had spent the last five minutes offering to me. I closed my laptop and began actually engaging with him in conversation.
I learned that this man, Sufjan, had grown up Muslim but decided to become an atheist at age 18. We talked about why this was. He was a grad student in one of the natural sciences and he explained that something needed to be seen, experienced, and observed before he could find any reason to trust its existence. Sufjan spent a long time talking about how much beauty and purpose he found in the intricacies of creation; I told him how surprised I was that he felt so passionate about this, yet didn’t see that as demanding the existence of a creator. We spent about an hour in discussion overall, and I was able to share the whole message of the gospel with him. I could tell this was not the first time he had purposefully struck up conversation with a believer. He spoke with a very high level of reasoning, but very flawed understanding, about the history and message of the Bible.
We eventually parted ways congenially, both with new challenges to research and think on. I am grateful for the opportunity God literally set before me to speak of His gospel! This encouraged me to always be on the lookout for opportunities around me, and to not pass them up just because I think I am busy with more important things. What more important thing could there be than sharing his message with another?
