Did you notice last Sunday that the first letter on those colored boxes spelled: “iLove”?

Here’s a cool story just fresh out of the oven…Monday I went to the hospital with one of my disciple making groups to pray for people in the lobby and look for opportunities to share the love of Jesus. I arrived first and saw a security guard positioned at a desk in a prominent location in the lobby. Given I was going to be walking around the lobby engaging people, I thought it smart to introduce myself to the officer.

I introduce myself and share that sometimes after work I stop by the hospital with some friends and we pray for people. The officer was all good with that and gave me the green light. 

As my guys hadn’t yet arrived, I asked the officer if there was anything going on in her life about which I could pray. For half a second, she registered a sort of surprised look, but then very quickly said, “Yes, I’ve been struggling with a health problem and the doctors can’t figure it out.” So I prayed, asking Jesus to give her both peace and healing just like I described last Sunday in our gathering. It was a short prayer, but I know God is always listening.

When I finished, I shared about a time in my life when Debbie and I were concerned about the health of one of our daughters. The Bible promised if we would trust Jesus, he would give us peace and we found that to be true. I asked the officer if she’d ever experienced anything like that and she shared that she hadn’t, so I asked her if I could show her a picture someone had shown me that helped me understand how much Jesus loves me. She was open, so I began to draw a picture visualizing the good news of how Jesus bridges the gap between us and God. 

At the end, we talked some more about her life and she expressed a personal desire to reconnect with God and to follow Jesus! She also agreed to meet on Tuesday so I could do a short Discovery Bible study with her and teach her to hear the spiritual voice of the Holy Spirit.

All of this starting with my initiating a normal, non-weird conversation with her. Any of us can do that! Sometimes the conversation won’t progress very far, but other times Jesus will lead you to Listen…to Offer prayer and your personal story…to Visualize the Gospel…and maybe even to Engage the person in a true story from the Bible. All we have to do is follow Jesus and pick up the spoon!