On Shows and Sharing

I spent most of yesterday at a builder’s show representing our landscape & lawncare business. I’ve done this often and generally enjoy talking to people about our company. My son has grown into quite a good salesman, so when I was working with him on this day I found myself mostly smiling or having friendly chit-chat with people and letting him have the serious conversations. I am okay with this. Sales would not be my strong point– to say the least.

But this did give me more time to stand back and just watch people. And here is what I noticed– if someone was interested in what we do or if they had a project already in mind and needed to hire a landscape contractor, then they would stop in our little 10×10 booth space and look at our display and talk with us. But if they weren’t, they’d walk right by.

Because they did not have need of our services. At least not right now. And maybe not ever.

One of the things I have really struggled over as I blog is the lack of footing I seem to get in this very fickle world of blogging. Growing4Life is not really all that appealing to most people. It’s focused on hard truths and is meant to challenge us out of our comfort zones. Very few readers are going to spend their time reading things that make them squirm. This can be very discouraging for me. So much so, that I have contemplated quitting numerous times. Why write?

{Let me insert a heartfelt thank you here to those of you who do read, share my posts, comment, and encourage me to keep going. Words cannot not express how truly grateful I am for you.}

But as I stood there thinking about all of the people who walked by our booth, a truth settled into my heart–

God will draw whomever He wants to read the blog. My job is to be faithful to what He has called me to do– whether I have one hit per day or one thousand.

And this truth affects much more than the blogosphere. It affects all of us, doesn’t it?

We are here to give God glory and to share the gospel. That is our main purpose. If we are doing this — whether in our neighborhood, workplace, online, or overseas on the mission field–we need to remember that God is master of the grand design. Sometimes we can grow discouraged because we feel like we aren’t making any different at all. And yet God is weaving all of our stories together perfectly. We may have planted a seed that will reap many dividends in the future but not find out about it until much later or perhaps we won’t find out until we reach heaven.

In the meantime, we can’t focus too much on the many people who aren’t interested in our message. It’s okay. It’s important to remember that most people aren’t going to be interested. The way is narrow (Matthew 7:14). (Actually, if the majority just loves us, we are most likely doing something wrong. John 15:18) True Biblical Christianity is not popular. But scattered in the midst of the general and sometimes hostile population are people who are searching for the truth and baby Christians longing to grow. God will give us opportunities to share Christ with unbelievers and to encourage and build up believers. Our job is to faithfully respond to those opportunities. We must not get discouraged.

Let’s be faithful to the ministry God has called us to and let Him take care of the rest. Yes, people will walk by and ignore us. They may even point a finger and make fun of us. But that’s when we need to remember that this short time here on earth– if we are saved– isn’t about us.

Let’s live our lives with an eternal perspective, remembering that God is weaving a marvelous tapestry of people touching people touching people. We can’t see it here from ground zero. But He can. We just need to keep on doing what He has put before us to do and let Him take care of the rest.