Spirituality
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.
Matthew 10:19-20
STORY
Sarah Young was born on March 15, 1946 in Nashville. While she was in graduate school her brother persuaded her to read Escape From Reason, a 1968 book by the evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer. Until then she had been a nominally faithful Christian at best, more influenced by the secular philosophers she studied in college. Schaeffer’s book affected her so much that she soon traveled to his retreat in the Swiss Alps, near Lake Geneva.
One evening she found herself walking through the snow amid the pine trees outside her chalet. When she recalled, “I became aware of a lovely Presence with me. This experience of Jesus’ Presence was far more personal than the intellectual answers for which I’d been searching. This was a relationship with the Creator of the universe.” From this experience she returned to the States and studied at Covenant Theological Seminary, which is located near St. Louis. After her marriage she and her husband became missionaries to Japan and Australia.
Health problems in 2003 forced her to retire from the mission field and return to Nashville. She lived with a number of chronic conditions, including Lyme disease, leaving her largely housebound. All the while she was keeping a devotional journal. She was met with rejection when she tried to get it published, though samples of her writing began to circulate among prayer circles. One member in Nashville was so moved that she showed them to her husband, an executive at the Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. He was also moved, offering her a contract.
With that acknowledgment she published her first book Jesus Calling: Enjoying Peace in His Presence, that was published in 2004. The book is composed of devotional readings written in the voice of Jesus. The book’s success can be attributed in part to Young’s unique writing technique of having Jesus speak in the first-person. As she wrote in her introduction, “I have written from the perspective of Jesus speaking, to help readers feel more personally connected with Him. So the first person singular (‘I,’ ‘Me,’ ‘My,’ ‘Mine’) always refers to Christ; ‘you’ refers to you, the reader.” Most of the book’s entries, one for each day of the year, appear as calm and concrete directives. For example, one entry reads, “Let me show you my way for this day. I guide you continually so you can enjoy my presence in the present.” From the original book came sequels, including Jesus Always and Jesus Today, along with calendars, journals, children’s editions, as well as a podcast.
Jesus Calling has not been without its critics, some of whom accuse Young of blasphemy for speaking in the name of Jesus. It even sparked a book-length dissection titled Another Jesus’ Calling: How False Christs Are Entering the Church Through Contemplative Prayer, by Warren B. Smith, a self-professed “former New Ager.”
Young has denied that she meant to speak for Jesus, or to channel his words. She said her book was simply her attempt to communicate the thoughts and feelings she experienced through her own daily devotionals.
DEVOTION
Even the most ardent evangelical Christian can be timid to share the gospel message. A list of causes for not doing so is common to all of us: I am not knowledgeable enough about the Bible; I can’t quote scripture; I don’t know how to answer difficult questions; I am too unsure of my own Christian journey; I realize that no one will take me seriously; My past and current sins discredit me; I am unsure on how to lead a person to salvation: these are not excuses, as they are legitimate reasons, as many Christians do feel unqualified to be an evangelist.
Rather than framing it as a lack of faith, let me frame it as a lack of trust. We need to trust in the promise of Jesus that the Holy Spirit will provide us with appropriate words for appropriate occasion. The person to whom we are speaking doesn’t expect expertise, only sincerity. The Spirit will always empower the heartfelt Christian with appropriate verbiage.
It goes unsaid that your best witness is the life that you live. Recognizing that all Christians share a commonality, yet, all Christians are unique, therefore experiment until you find your voice. Avoid serotype presentations; instead, be natural, be yourself in sharing the message of salvation.
The storyline, from IMDb for the movie Cowboys & Aliens, reads as follows: The Old West, where a lone cowboy leads an uprising against a terror from beyond our world. In 1873 in the New Mexico Territory, a stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). The town of Absolution lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents-townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors-all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.
Claudia Puig reviewed the movie for USA Today. Puig opened her article stating, “Fifteen producers – including Steven Spielberg – and eight writers should have been able to put together a summer movie that transcends a generic action yarn.” In other words, the movie was stereotypical and predictable. Even with Daniel Craig and Olivie Wilde in starring roles, along with Harrison Ford wearing his Indiana Jones cap, accompanied by producer Ron Howard and enhanced by Steven Spielberg’s production company DreamWorks, these accomplished actors and cinematographers could not save the film from mediocracy. It seems in a group of fifteen producers and eight writers, that no one involved in the movie was able to present something unique.
You are very special and you have a unique witness, dispense with mediocracy, find your voice and be yourself.