My eight-year-old granddaughter, Emmie, and I scooted into the grocery store. I had taken her to Campbellsville, Ky., to buy her a Bible. “Your very own Bible,” I promised. Then I let her choose where she wanted to eat. Before we headed home, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up a few items.
“Excuse me, but didn’t you teach the Old Testament a couple of years ago at Campbellsville University?” the young lady working in the fruit and vegetable section asked me.
I anticipated a complaint about not getting the grade she wanted.
“I’ve thought about finding you many times,” she said. “I accepted Christ as a result of being in that class.”
Standing in front of the plums and peaches, Erykah told me how she had been an avowed atheist when she enrolled in my class, which she didn’t take because of me. The class was a requirement for her degree, and the time it was offered fit her schedule.
But my lecture on the creation story in Genesis and the “thought assignment” I gave them from it prompted Erykah to ponder. That night, she walked out, peered into the night sky, and began to doubt her belief system.
Later in the week, she was at the student center, where she shared her thoughts with a friend. He, a Christian, shared his faith with Erykah. Several conversations later, Erykah committed to Christ.
I thought of Paul’s words to the church in Corinth. “I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. (1 Corinthians 3:6-7).
All I had done was plant a seed. Someone else led Erykah to a deeper understanding of the Good News, which ultimately led to her acceptance of Christ. Then others have helped her grow.
“How many people had a part to play in my coming to Christ?” I wondered. Certainly, my parents, and then the minister. But what about my parents? Who first planted in them a knowledge of Christ, without which they wouldn’t have passed the Light to me? The preacher at Falls Creek (the Baptist encampment in Oklahoma where my dad accepted Christ), my grandmother, who took my mom to church every week, and a host of people there must have nurtured an accepting environment for my mom’s decision to follow Christ. My parents’ and their parents’ Christian pilgrimages are scattered with unknown servants. And what of their parents? An endless stream flows all the way back to Christ.
And then, from ourselves, we may never know the number of people in whom we have planted a seed for Christ. I would never have known about Erykah had I not entered the store that day.
When we let the Light shine through us, we never know the impact we might have.
Of course, it is God who draws people to Himself. What joy to be one of those through whom the Light shines.
Believers have the happy privilege of shining. Christian author and leader, Elton Trueblood, said, “Evangelism is not a professional job for a few trained men, but is instead the unrelenting responsibility of every person who belongs to the company of Jesus.”
Erikah beamed as she shared her story. And as Emmie and I got in the car to leave, I noticed a twinkle in her eyes as she clutched her new Bible.