More Planting, Watering, Harvesting

With Thanksgiving week here, I’ve been thinking about what I’m most thankful for right now. It didn’t take me long to realize what that is.

Three months ago, I received an e-mail from a man who was my student in a Third World country 38 years ago. We had been in touch sporadically a few times throughout the years, including in person, but it had been a long time since our last contact. I was very joyful to be back in touch since we had become friends way back then–but much more than that, we had become brothers in Christ some time ago. I will refer to him throughout this post with the moniker “Challenger,” for reasons which will soon become obvious.

When he was my student, Challenger would sometimes come to visit, and we sometimes had lengthy conversations, often focused on his questions about God and the Bible. Since we were in a Communist country, he had a strong atheistic background, and his questions were usually asked in a challenging, even scoffing, manner. He would sometimes shake his head and say, “Oh, Keith” in a tone which indicated he thought I was foolish to be a Christian. I rarely found myself “offended” because I understood that for someone with his background, I should not be surprised. More importantly, I was very thankful for the opportunity to talk to him about the Lord.

In the same class, there was another student that I will call “Party Girl” because she was a Communist Party member. I knew of that affiliation because she was the class monitor, responsible for duties such as taking attendance, managing classroom supplies, and monitoring student behavior–for the teacher as well as the administration. I didn’t get to know her as well, but I remember that she also thought the idea of God was foolish. To be clear, I was an English teacher, not a Bible teacher, but students would ask all kinds of questions outside of class, especially about various aspects of American culture, which to them included churches, God, and the Bible. When American holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter came around, my two American teaching partners and I were allowed to talk to students about the meaning of them, which also opened some doors.

Three years later, I got to see Challenger and Party Girl again–as a married couple! They had graduated, and in the meantime, I had also gotten married during my year back in the States. My wife and I had returned to that same Communist country as newlyweds. We taught there for three more years before returning to the States with a toddler in tow. I had a couple more chances to see both Party Girl and Challenger here, and then a few years later, my former teaching partners informed me that Challenger had become a Christian! A few more years after that, Party Girl also gave her life to Christ.

When Challenger contacted me again three months ago, we had a lengthy, incredibly joyful conversation over Zoom, and I finally got to hear the story of how he had come to put his trust in Jesus Christ. Among other things, he said that there was a pastor in the States that he had challenged with a lot of questions, and this pastor had patiently answered all of them. Challenger found himself in tears, and shortly after that, he prayed to receive Christ.

A couple of weeks after I got to hear Challenger’s story, my wife and I talked with both Challenger and Party Girl over Zoom, and we got to hear the story about how she, too, had put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ a few years after her husband; a number of people, both here and back in their country of origin, had had a part in this. It is hard to express the joy I felt in hearing her story as well as his; 1 Peter 1:8-9 expresses it better than I, with my own words, can: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” Yes, inexpressible and glorious joy for the salvation of Challenger and Party Girl! As my wife and I were talking later, I told her that Challenger and Party Girl were not exactly two of my students from 38 years ago that I would have thought would come to faith in Christ; however, back then I didn’t understand that their questions reflected a desire not just for information, but a much deeper longing in their souls.

This year, my wife and I are homeschooling the son of close friends of ours. He has also had a large number of questions about God and the Bible. One of them was, “Why doesn’t God make the world perfect?” In fact, he developed that into an excellent essay! Another of his questions was, “Can God kill Satan?” (!) There are many others as well, but this one that he asked my wife was especially striking: “Can you teach me how to love God just to love God?” As my wife talked to him, he explained that he meant he wanted to love God just for Who He is, not focusing on any reward in heaven, for example. Wow. He said that he is not ready to become a Christian yet. However, my wife and and I think that he is very close. I suppose there are some Christians who might want to focus on his praying to receive Christ now, but since we believe that it will happen in God’s timing, we’re not going to try to rush/push it.

A couple of years ago, I wrote another post which includes stories about planting, watering, and harvesting. You can click here to read it if you’re interested: https://keithpetersenblog.com/2021/02/24/planting-watering-harvesting/ I referred to I Corinthians 3:5-7, which says, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe–as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” In other words, sometimes you may plant the seed in a person’s life; they hear something of the Gospel for essentially the first time. This was the case with Challenger and Party Girl. Sometimes you may water the seed; a person already knows something of the Gospel, but they learn more of it from you; this has been the case with the boy my wife and I are homeschooling. The Bible also often speaks of harvest as a metaphor for people who put their faith in Christ; sometimes you may even have the privilege of being there for that moment. With the son of our friends, maybe we will have that privilege; regardless, we have already had the joy of talking to him about the Lord and the Bible. Regardless of what role(s) we are privileged to have, as Scripture says, it is God Who makes the seed grow.

Maybe as you sit around the table on Thanksgiving Day with your family and friends, you can bless each other by sharing what you are most thankful for right now. May you have a most blessed Thanksgiving!