Creative and Courageous Conversations

Not too long ago, I had a young woman living with me who was a delight to be around. And I really think it was because she enjoyed the simplest of things. A bag of hot chips from the grocery store and a walk in the park could absolutely make her day. She also loved to get out and do things with me — church, small group, the movies, a Super Bowl party. We regularly ate dinner together, and at least once a week we would pull our groceries together and cook. Sometimes after dinner in the lull of the conversation, she would contentedly announce, “Today has been a good day.” As if that’s all that needed to be said. And perhaps it was. 

A little more recently, a different friend asked me if I had had a good day, to which I gave a half-hearted, kind-of-sort-of yes. Because he is kind, he followed up with a great question. “What makes a good day?” How do you measure that? 

“I think it has to do with the conversations we have,” I said. “Good conversations make a good day.” And by good conversations, I mean kingdom conversations. The kinds of conversations that go a little deeper than average, the kind that taste a little spiritual (or a lot), the kind where you can bring Jesus into it and people are either intrigued or encouraged by how thoughts of him change the way they are thinking about their present situations, the kind where the threads of the gospel are woven into what is spoken and understood. 

I crave those kinds of conversations. The kind that takes a little bit of courage and creativity to bring Jesus into them. I have also learned that they don’t normally happen unless you are very intentional and purposeful. If you have Jesus on your heart and mind, he will come out in your conversations. But if you have work and social status on your mind, your conversations will be tinged with the desire to promote self and performance. If you are tired, you might just let the whole day go by without a meaningful conversation at all. I’ve done all that. 

What Jesus said is true: Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. In other words, you speak about what you love. Your conversations are about the things you love. 

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I confessed recently to some friends about my ongoing struggle with the question, What am I even doing here in the United States? I’ve been reading back through my blog posts from 2015-2017, reminding my heart of the stories of Burkina Faso, and I sit on my bed in the evenings laughing out loud and real-tear crying as I remember these things. 

Man, what stories I have to tell. Every week, I was writing these amazing back-to-back stories from real experiences that were changing my life and the lives of others. 

Now I look back at my past week and I wonder, what stories do I have to tell? 

It seems that my days in Africa pulsed with serving others, sharing the gospel, showing hospitality, and living life relationally in authentic community. It seems that my days here can quickly wrap around...work...and the daily mundane tasks of maintaining a home - the shopping, cooking, cleaning, sleeping. It makes me ask the question, what am I even doing here?

Praise God that I have friends who will listen to this vulnerable part of my heart and then see purpose in me and speak it into existence. They help me remember that when I told God I would serve him “wherever,” that includes right here. 

So we prayed together that we would live in such a way to tell good stories about our days. And by good stories, I mean gospel stories. 

So what am I doing here? I finished reading my Africa blogs and fell asleep on that question, having no answers. I’ve learned to do that — fall asleep on my questions, as if I tuck them into the hands of God overnight and ask him to work on them while I sleep. The next morning, I woke up with the same question and turned to Psalm 27. 

“One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”

There it was. My one thing. The answer to my question, what am I even doing here? What we are all doing here is to seek God and dwell in his presence. It’s as simple and mysterious as that. 

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At first I thought my goal was to write good stories with my life, and that in order to do that, I had to bring more “Africa” to America. I needed to feed more hungry children and do more service projects, I guess. Surely these things would lead to good stories. 

I’m learning that what we really need to do is abide in Christ. Seek and pursue him. Spend lingering time dwelling in his presence and contemplating his beauty. Out of abiding comes obedience. Out of abiding comes transformation. Out of abiding we find greater purpose for our days when we wonder what our purpose is. Out of abiding comes the power of the Holy Sprit to have good conversations — no, gospel conversations. 

I’m learning that I don’t have to add a bunch of activities to service projects to my days; I just need renewed perspective on the things God has already given me to do — my habitual meeting times with God, my eight hours at work each day, my grocery shopping and greeting neighbors and having conversations with friends. Bring Jesus and the gospel into these ordinary things. Bring extraordinary love and extra-mile service into these mundane things. 

Now let me tell you how this changes things. Let me tell you stories from today. 

I could tell about how I gave my best to my patients, how I even got to have salty Jesus conversations with a few of them. 

I could tell about how I reconnected with a friend who was rescued last week from self-harm, and hanging out spontaneously with her made me thirty minutes late to the next thing I was supposed to do, but I didn’t mind because I was on Africa time. 

Then there is the story about this taco truck handing out free meals, and when I heard about it, I went and got six and shared them with my neighbors. 

I could also tell the story of the friend who popped in for an afternoon visit, and I gave him time without bookends (just like I used to do in Africa when time was irrelevant). He ended up staying way later than he probably anticipated, but I didn’t mind having good gospel conversation as the sky went dark. 

Then my neighbor came out and we talked about coronavirus until it turned unashamedly into a spiritual conversation. 

I checked a voice message that I received from West Africa: it was a Muslim woman and her baby that I helped deliver two years ago. I listened as she greeted me and the baby babbled and repeated some of the words. Then she started singing the song that I used to always sing to the baby, a song about how Jesus saves. 

It started to thunder and I sat on the porch and watched the storm blow in until the rain pattered on the rooftop, just like I used to do in Africa. 

“Today has been a good day,” I whispered to the Lord, because good stories to tell come out of good gospel conversations. Honestly, today could have easily been a normal day, but thanks to coronavirus, we are not living in normal days. And thanks to Africa, I don’t always live like a normal person. And thanks to abiding in Christ, we are not living with normal power. 

Take advantage of what is not normal these days, and take every opportunity to have creative and courageous conversations that share Christ with a world that is searching for a solid foundation.