My Redeemed Heart: Leading me to Christ 18 years ago

I have been reading the book, "Just Walk Across the Room" by Bill Hybels and it got me thinking about my own story of coming to faith. So I was challenged to put a few words down to share how a friend "walked across the room" for me.

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My high school friend Kate, was instrumental in leading me to Christ. Kate grew up in a loving Christian home, a family actively involved in church. I also grew up in a loving home but one without God. It was during university that one day Kate took the risk to invite me to a Christian group called Student Life. I said no the first time because I was afraid, but Kate never let go of her compassion for me. The following week she risked rejection and asked again if I wanted to come along with her to this “Christian thing”. This time, I decided I would take the chance as Kate had always shown herself to be a trustworthy and faithful friend in all the years I had known her. It was Kate, an ordinary high school friend, who literally walked me through the door of the lecture theatre where the Student Life meeting was being held and brought me to a place where I would begin a journey of discovering this guy called Jesus Christ, and my life has never been the same since that day.

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I know that Kate would never call herself an evangelist, in fact “evangelism” always terrified her.

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Yet it was Kate who kept pointing me towards Jesus through our friendship, our conversations, by her willingness to always answer my ‘God questions’ with kindness and openness. It was the testimony of her life as I watched her live out her faith all through high school ,that kept me open and questioning her about faith, and ultimately gave me the trust to accept her invitation to Student Life.

In “Just Walk Across the Room” , author Bill Hybels writes,

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“You don’t have to be any more talented, any richer, any slimmer, any smarter, any more or less of anything to partner with God. All you have to be is willing to be used by him in everyday ways.” (pages 95-96).

All Kate did was be a loving friend who saw me as someone whom God loves and was willing to go where God was asking her to go. I don’t know if I would ever had known Jesus and had the richness of discipleship that I had through my experience at Student Life if it wasn’t for the gentle kindness of a loving Christian friend who evangelised to me by simply being herself and being available to God.