Pray to God to Bring Someone Else into Their Life, Because They’re Probably not Going to Listen to You.
Rule Number Seven, and in some ways, I think this may be the most important rule, and maybe the most difficult of all. This rule says “pray to God to bring someone else into their life because they’re probably not going to listen to you.”
I want people to listen to me. All of us want people to listen to us and be interested in what we have to share. But, in many cases, with close family and friends, or people we don’t even know and may never have a chance to talk to again on the street. The rule is pray, and ask God to bring someone else into their life to influence them. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen this happen.
We think it’s our job, our family member left the Faith, our family member denied the Church, it’s my job to get him back. He’s my brother, of course, he’s my family member. God expects me to go out and get him and bring him back but that’s probably not the case. Because oftentimes, family and friends are the last ones that are going to listen. So, in this case, we have to trust the Holy Spirit. Is he really there? Do we really believe God is there? His Holy Spirit is working in people’s lives? If we don’t, then we need to get our own theology correct, but if we do, then we should be willing and able to step back and say “God, I want You to work in that person’s life. I’m ready to answer their questions. I’m going to pray for them, I’m going to be joyful, I’m going to love them, but I want You to bring someone else into their life because it’s probably going to be very difficult for them to hear it from me.”
I’ll give you one, interesting example.We had a family relative, who, when we became Catholic, was furious and refused to talk to us. For over a year, they had nothing to do with us. It was like a divorce. I knew they weren’t going to listen to my wife or I. So, we started to pray every day. Remember I talked about the unjust judge back a rule or two back? Well, that’s what I did. I knocked on God’s door every day. I said, “God, I’m going to drive you crazy.”I say that with tongue in cheek, of course but “I’m going to come and ask the judge every day to do something for this family member. You said if an unjust judge is approached every day over and over again, finally he’ll do it just to be left alone. So, I’m going to come every day, and more times than once a day, and I’m going to appeal to You, God, to deal and bring this person back.” Well, we did that every day. We found out that, a year later, that friend was camping with another couple, they didn’t even know they were Catholic. That couple, both of the wives, were book club people. They read books and shared them. And one said to my relative, “I just read the best book I’ve ever read before.” She said, “Well, what is it? I’ll get a copy and read it right away.” She said, “The book is called Crossing the Tiber.”
The relative said “Who wrote it?” And she said “Steve Ray.” My relative was shocked and said, “You liked his book? But he became Catholic!” And the lady said, “Well, I’m Catholic and it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.” Well, my relative got a copy of the book and she read it. She has not become a Catholic, but it tore down all of the walls of anger and hostility and aggressive to the right point where the relationship was restored and love and friendship was brought back into the family again, unity.
Now, that was an answer to prayer. We still are praying for the next step of a conversion, but the very fact that that whole wall of separation and anger was broken down because someone else came into their life that they respected, showed me that oftentimes, we’re best off to step back pray, love show joy, do our homework, but ask the Holy Spirit of God to bring somebody else into their life.
I believe that God, outside of space and time, looks down, and this may be a crude example but I think it works, and there’s a chess board in front of Him. He sees this person over here and this person over here and says,“How can I get this person, this pawn, over here to this square because I know this person will talk to him?” We need to pray that God will be moving those pieces around in space and time to bring our friends, family, relative, or those that we witness to, maybe we share with someone on the street one time and they say “Good bye” and we never see them again, but we pray that “God, make sure that they don’t go a day or two longer without somebody else coming and keeping this process going.” God is working on that chess board, partly in answer to our prayers, to bring this person over closer to this person, so that they can be shared with the Gospel again, or be influenced with the truth again.
So, rule number seven, and take this one seriously, and maybe the most important one you have to deal with, is ask the Holy Spirit of God to be working in people’s lives, bringing someone else into their life to influence them. Then, we can check off on that prayer list that He did it on such-and-such a date.
With all these 7 rules, they’re common sense and yet, we as human beings need to be reminded of common sense over and over again. So, let’s go out and do our job. Trust the Holy Spirit to do His job, and let’s get people back in the Church, in love with Jesus Christ, and on their way to heaven because being a Saint is all that’s important, and taking as many people to heaven with us as we can. Have fun with these Seven Rules and may God bless you.