Preach the word, be prepared in season and out of season…. 2 Timothy 4:2

“Well, I had a little ‘Now’s the Time’ Moment!” today. Pam announced to me Monday afternoon as I walked into the house.

“Wow, tell me about it!” I exclaimed.

Having preached on the topic of seizing opportunities to share our faith with others this past Sunday, it doesn’t surprise me at all that God would open up opportunities in the coming week. I find that regardless of the subject matter and no matter who’s preaching on any given Sunday, God always gives me plenty of opportunities to grow based on what I’ve heard on Sunday. I think it’s the Spirit’s way of discipling- learn and then practice…

Now if God would only burden me to preach on “What I would do if I were given 10 million dollars.” I’d be willing to partner with the Spirit on that one, too!

For those of you who dozed off or missed Sunday’s message, I spoke about “Now’s the Time” Moments out of 2 Timothy 4:1-5. A NTTM is when God places before you an opportunity to act or speak in His name and you just KNOW it is from him. You can’t quibble or dodge, you just allow the Spirit of God to rise up and you share what God has put on your heart. This is part of what it means to “preach the word and be prepared in season and out of season.”

“So, what happened?” I asked. I knew that Pam had gone along as a parent chaperone with my daughter Amanda for her sixth-grade science field trip with Stonewall Middle School. The entire sixth grade was bussed up to the Manassas Battlefield for a day of exploring wet lands, forests and streams.

As it turned out, Pam was grouped with a couple of moms and a science teacher for a few minutes while the 6th graders were being organized and receiving instructions for the day. One of the moms was talking about her daughter’s science project from last year exploring 3 theories on how water came to be on planet earth. The mom was sharing with the science teacher that her daughter had found an interesting and exotic theory that water was brought to the earth by the collision of the primordial earth with an icy comet billions and billions of years ago. There were several other theories, none of which included a biblical world view, of course; and as the conversation continued, Pam felt that little internal nudge of the Spirit to say something.

It was a light-hearted and informal conversation, so Pam said in a light and cheery way, “Or God could have put it here… that’s my vote!” The conversation kind of paused, one of the moms looked like she was going to say something, and then conversation continued on to other topics.

That was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

As Pam and I chatted about her day, we reflected on what possible impact her little statement could have made. Maybe, very little… Discussing evolutionary theory about the origin of water isn’t exactly the starting point either of us would have chosen to enter into a conversation about God… but who knows? The flip side of it is that had Pam had said nothing, the conversation wouldn’t have provoked any consideration of God whatsoever and Pam would have left that little circle of friends feeling as if she had not been completely true to her faith. We’ve all done that before. In the end, Pam HAD to speak.

For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. Acts 4:20

So, continue to scatter the seed of the word, in season or out of season. We aren’t responsible for the outcome but only to follow the moment by moment prompting of the Spirit of God. Let Him call the shots.