They might hurt me

Do you remember your elementary school years - years of dodge ball, soccer, football, basketball and tag.  These years included playing games.  Sometimes these games were organized and most of the time they weren't.  I don't know about you, but the one thing I didn't like about these years of game playing was picking teams.  

I have never been a great athlete.  Change that, I have never been even a very good athlete.  I try hard.  I hustle.  I focus.  But, I am a bit slow and a bit short and a bit uncoordinated.  Not the makings of a first round draft pick.  Many times, when it was time to pick teams I ended up being one of the ones standing there at the end.  You remember what happens then right?  The team captains look at each other and basically try to put the last player on the other team with something like, "We're good.  You can have him."  Which is the playground interpretation of addition by subtraction. 

Let's face it.  None of us like rejection.  If we did, we would have a surplus of door to door vacuum cleaner salespeople.  When we talk to people about Jesus, we are risking rejection.   We are risking them shutting the door on us and locking us out.  We don't want to be hurt, rejected, or ridiculed.  Sometimes, the pain of potential rejection is worse than the thought of having our house get hit by a tornado.  At least we have insurance for that.  We don't have hurt insurance that takes the pain away and makes things "all better."

But, it isn't only rejection that we don't like.  It is the pain that goes with it.  "No pain.  No gain." and "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" are two proverbs of our day.  We might embrace them for exercise - at least for the first month or two of each year - but we struggle to embrace them beyond that.  In fact, we are so averse to pain that we call medications like Tylenol and Advil - pain killers.  They are not pain reducers or even pain eliminators.  They are pain killers.

Our fear of pain can make us think at least twice before talking with people about Jesus.  Take a look at these words from Jesus.

“God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way. - Matthew 5:11-12 (NLT)

As Jesus wraps up the Beatitudes and gets ready to segue into the Sermon on the Mount, he provides this motivational quote to a large crowd he taught from a mountain top.  I don't know about you, but for me this isn't much of a sales pitch for following Jesus.   But, it is the honest truth.  When people reject us because we are connected to Jesus, we aren't experiencing anything new.  God's people have been dealing with rejection practically since time began. Take at look at these words Jesus shared with his disciples just before he was betrayed by a close associate and arrested.

"But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when you will be scattered, each one going his own way, leaving me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me.  I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” - John 16:32-33 (NLT)

There are two things that jump out at me here.  Jesus was not alone and we aren't either.  Just before Jesus went back up to heaven he made this promise.

"be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  - Matthew 28:20 (NLT)

Another thing that encourages me from John 16 is that Jesus has overcome the world.  Life will be hard here at times - sometimes unbearably so.  satan puts a dart board on everyone who follows Jesus and sometimes he throws a lot of darts at us.  We will struggle with all sorts of things on this side of heaven, but paradise awaits for all who believe in Jesus.  And our time in paradise will last forever.

Give two tickets to paradise to two people you know.  Talk with them about Jesus.

On a side note, here are two really good articles I've read recently on facing fears:

- satan's favorite word
- What you can learn from getting hit in the face