When I very suddenly became a Christian, I was in a supply closet at my job. By the time I was coming out of that closet (har! okay, grow up) — and I mean the exact thought that very strongly came to me as I was turning the doorknob that would lead me back out into the real world — I knew that I was never going to evangelize to others.
Can you imagine? You fall on your knees; out of nowhere you become a Christian; dazed, you get back up onto your feet; you reach for a doorknob; and the one thought that blasts through your head and physically arrests you for a moment is, “I’m not evangelizing. That’s not part of what this is.”
I’m not saying that thought came from God. Without question it felt like it did, but I understand that the mind is one of the trickier organs. (And, yes, I’ve aware of the argument that perhaps my tricky mind duped me into becoming a Christian.) I do know that the conviction that at that moment nailed me about evangelizing seems as true to me now as it did then. Before I was a Christian I felt like it was unbelievably offensive for one person to tell another what they should believe about God; fourteen years later, I still think that. Looking to the Bible to make sure I was right about that, I became so convinced I was that I wrote I’m OK–You’re Not.
I’m still listening to God; I’m always open to anything God might say to me about how to more perfectly understand him. And, believe me, if God ever tells me to grab a soapbox, go down by the bus station, and start screaming at people about being saved, I’ll be there just the second after I pull over to buy a bullhorn.
It’s weird though, isn’t it? About the third thought I had after becoming a Christian was, “Oh, no. Now I have to be one of those people I hate who are always telling others why they, too, should become Christian. Oh. Wait. No, I don’t have to do that. Thank God!” And then the first thing of any substance that I write after becoming a Christian is “Penguins,” in which I make a case for the argument that becoming Christian doesn’t necessarily mean becoming an irrational zombie.
“Penguins” is an apologetic. It’s an argument for Christianity, intended for non-Christians.
It’s a work of evangelism.
That God. He is tricky.
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