Finding joy outweighs fear

Growing up with a Christian family and strong church, I had loved God for as long as I could remember. When I got to Duke, I attended FCA regularly and went to IV maybe once a month. I was getting my “fix” of God-time throughout the week, but my social life was dominated by friends who didn't believe in Jesus.

I didn’t feel like I was falling into sin or anything, but in a way I had compartmentalized faith and friends into two separate boxes. Though both boxes were full and growing, at times in fellowship I would feel spiritually taxed, and at times with my friends I would feel unfulfilled. It wasn’t until my second year that a friend from IV would challenge me to live missionally, and my third year that God would teach me the joys of doing so.

Like many other Christians, I didn’t realize just how much work God is doing in the hearts of non-believers. I didn’t realize what a blessing it is to be surrounded by so many non-believers, and at the same time enjoy the comforts of a strong Christian community like IV. “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few”.

Fearfully, I began to pray for opportunities to share my faith with my friends. Secretly I would hope that God would not answer these prayers lest He make me live up to my words and spill my faith out of the closet. Well, as God would will it, I found opportunities left and right. Though many times I would feel inadequate or stuck, God and my Christian friend would continue to encourage me.

There was one hallmate whom I was able to convince to come to IV two times. Issues of human rights and career paths had sparked conversations about things beyond the superficial. At the time, my faith was still too small to see where these conversations were going though.. Actually I still feel like my faith is not big enough to comprehend how God is able to use small things.

The end of my second year I was distressed about changing roommates. The relationship I had with my previous roommate was not fruitful; I could tell he did not want to hear about my faith at all. After many block meetings, I decided to room with the hallmate I mentioned earlier.

An IV friend encouraged me that I shouldn’t feel as if I’m giving up witnessing to my former roommate, but have new opportunities with a new roommate. Well I prayed a lot about it.. sometimes fearfully like before. What followed is the most humbling experience of my life time. God answered the prayers like I would never believe.

Over that summer I was not in much contact with my soon-to-be roommate, but God had completely worked in his life in a very real way and he began to accept Christ. “Night and day, whether [the farmer] sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how” (Mark4:267-27).

The first thing my current roommate told me when we saw each other again was “I need to go to IV" and that he had accepted Christ over the summer. *Baffled*. Here I was being afraid of what to do, whether I was inadequate, whether I was really going anywhere.. and there God is reminding me of just how strong His will is despite the weakness of the tools He uses to achieve it.

To this day, I am still learning from my roommate, and finding such joy in seeing his faith grow. I am still marveling at God’s ability to change people’s hearts so drastically and mysteriously. In addition to gaining a brother, I find great joy that there is power in prayer and peace in sharing through the Spirit. I share this hoping that other Christians might discover that the joys of witnessing outweigh the fears of putting your faith out there. Fear, whether in prayer, thought, or action, is not enough to stop God from using you if you let Him :)

-- Jason, Duke '10