My son’s 1st grade teacher came to his basketball game last Friday night (what a great teacher she is!) and told us a little story about Marshall.

Evidently, after Ash Wednesday Marshall came up to his teacher and asked her point blank, “what are you giving up for lent?” She told him that she was Southern Baptist and that she didn’t give up anything for lent! She thought that this was the sweetest thing that Marshall was so open about his faith and just assumed everyone experienced lent the same way.

I hope he never loses his abandonement for sharing his faith. I pray that he doesn’t listen to the world’s viewpoint of “tolerance” at all costs when it means your views get pushed aside. Sharing our faith has taken on such an ominous feel lately. We are reluctant to have conversations about spiritual matters because of our fear of offending another person. I am one of the guiltiest when it comes to that. Rather than speak up or ask a question that may lead to a conversation, I find myself ducking for cover and hoping the subject goes away. But how many times have I been exactly where God wants me in terms of time and place, and then I refused to do my part?

My prayer for all of us is that we have the courage to live out our faith via actions and words. The world desparately needs another viewpoint. It desparately needs a Savior. I leave you with these words from Romans 10: 14-15:

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they
believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without
someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As
it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”