Guest Post by Jonathan Jones

My prayers are usually filled with lifting up my needs to God, the needs of people close to me, and asking Him to reveal Himself to people I have been sharing the gospel with. Do I think to sit in silence before Him much to see what He has to say about all these things? Usually not. However, God taught me the importance of waiting upon Him this week and tuning my hear to listen to guidance He gives through the Holy Spirit.

We had only one week to spend in Germany, and I felt a slight pressure to make the most of every moment I had during that short span. One emphasis our leaders had brought to our attention was looking for the person of peace in any context who would listen to the gospel and show you to their sphere of influence. We went through several passages in the Bible regarding finding a person of peace such as the woman at the well, Jesus sending out the 72 followers, and Peter coming to Cornelius. We knew on the second day that we needed to spend much more of our time in prayer before engaging the people in the apartment complex we were headed to. Our leaders gave us specific things to pray for as we went and one of them was that God would point us to the people who would have open hearts and had a spiritual hunger. During our morning worship times, there was a time where we simply sat before the Lord and allowed Him to say to us whatever He wanted to say. With this in mind, I wanted to spend plenty of time in prayer before talking with the people there and listening for any guidance or word from the Lord. We split up into two groups to walk around the block a few times and pray for the people we would meet. My wife and I were a pair and we began to walk and pray that God would lead us to the right people that day. As we were walking along, I began to just be silent and listen for anything God had to say. Like I said earlier, I am usually the one doing most of talking but I was filled with a sense of expectancy in what God was going to do this week. Then a name and a place came into my mind as I was listening for the Lord to speak. I thought it was odd at first that I received a specific name and place, and at first I figured that I could have just come up with that in my own mind. As I reflected on it, I sensed that the Lord really had given me a specific name and place for someone He wanted us to meet. I told my wife that I believed God said we were going to meet Ahmed in front of a specific building.

We finished our time of prayer walking and met back with the rest of our group. They asked me what the plan was, and I told them that God said we were going to meet Ahmed in front of a specific building. My wife and I went to the apartment buildings to find some people to talk to. We did not find many people open to listening to the gospel at first, or there was a language barrier that was difficult to overcome. We even met a few guys named Ahmed, but they were not in front of the building God told me he would be. We went inside the building one more time with a person who invited us in. We stayed and talked with him in limited English for a few minutes but decided it was time to leave when he only wanted to show us some videos on his computer. As we were walking out of that building, there was a man standing right outside the door. I stopped and asked him for his name and where he was from. Our translator spoke his language and we began to talk. I asked him if God could do a miracle in his life, what would he want Him to do? We prayed together after he told me what he wanted God to do for him, then I told him that God did a miracle in my life. He asked what the miracle was and I began to share my testimony and the gospel. As I was sharing with him, I noticed another man standing close by who seemed to be listening very closely to what we were talking about. The man kept moving closer until he was right beside us. I had not met him yet but he obviously seemed to understand the language our translator was speaking. After I finished sharing the gospel with the first man I met outside, I asked him if I could share with him another story about Jesus. He agreed and I shared the story of the prodigal son using some pictures on my phone. At this point, the other man who had been interested in what we were talking about was right beside us as I showed them the pictures and shared the story with them. When I asked the first man I was talking to what prevented him from following Jesus, he told me he was muslim and couldn’t consider following Jesus. The man who came up during our conversation though was still there and he wanted to invite us up for tea. I asked him what his name was, and he told me it was Ahmad and we were right in front of the building God told me he would be in front of. We went up to his apartment to have tea and talk some more. I asked him if we could come back and share more stories about God and he told us he wanted to learn more.

Listening to God during our time in Germany helped me see the real importance in prayer. I was amazed at what God was doing there and how He was giving us His guidance as we waited and listened to Him. This experience has transformed my time in prayer and my realization that I cannot do anything apart from Christ. Waiting on the Lord and listening to Him will be essential to the way I spend my time in America as I seek to share the good news with my neighbors from around the world.