I believe my former notions of evangelism were shallow and simplistic. I imagined evangelism to be an exercise by which someone simply switched religious allegiances. It’s easy to see where I got this idea from. Evangelism as portrayed and taught in many evangelistic programs too often involves a scripted conversation through which someone, perhaps without the basis of much of a relationship at all, talks someone else into praying in Jesus’ name or attending a church. All that is fine, and I’m not about to say it doesn’t happen, but I think there is most often something more to it than that. Evangelism is the process by which someone begins to draw their comfort and joy from the work of Christ and the benefits found in him.

As I pray for others to seek their comfort and joy from God through Christ, especially my children, I realize that I am probably praying for their pain. I find that my prayers for my children in fact are contradictory. On one hand I want their lives to be golden. I want all of their circumstances to be fortunate and pleasant. I don’t want them to have pain, struggle or frustration and I want to do all in my power to have that happen. On the other hand I want them to find their comfort and joy from God through Christ rather than through the myriad of distractions, comforts, pleasures afforded by middle class American life. Please understand me in this, however, that I remain an Augustinian. I do believe that all of the roots of these pleasures are found in the creator God, yet in our rebellion our hearts cut off the connection and employ these pleasures idolatrously. We use these gifts as a way to escape our creator rather than a way to give him praise.

In order to bring us to the source of these pleasures, through which in fact the pleasures in the long run are more safely and greatly enjoyed, God brings us through various deprivations and sufferings. He divorces us from the pleasures of circumstance in order that we might increasingly enjoy the pleasures of the source of all circumstance rather than drawing our life from the circumstances themselves which are never a sufficient basis for the kinds of comfort and joy we were made for.

What does this means for evangelism and praying for my children’s faith? It means that when I pray that they may derive their comfort and joy from the source of all comfort and joy I am likely asking that the LORD bring them through a time of deprivation and of sorrow that will bring them to his throne directly. This pains me because I know that this will mean they will suffer and I don’t want them to. I don’t want to see them in pain, in fact I am committed at a very deep level to do what I can to prevent their pain. At the same time I know they will need to go through pain to know the source of all joy so I too must partake in their pain.

What does this teach me about evangelism in general? The age of decay, the devil, and our destructive natures dole out plenty of pain in this world already so for many there are ample fertilizer in the soil for many to seek the source of all comfort and joy. So often the greater the pain the sweeter the good news. Ironically, however also, the greater the pain sometimes the tighter the prison of despair and bondage to the idolatries common to our world. It remains a mystery who is sprung from these prisons and who is not. Evangelism is hardly like selling Amway soap or Fuller brushes. We pursue seemingly contradictory paths to the same end. We pray for God’s intervention in circumstance while we also pray that God draw a person towards greater comfort and joy in spite of their calamities in the age of decay. The truth is that we seek the longer term, fuller joy of the age to come employing even the misery of the age of decay to root our joy in the source of all joy.

I pray my evangelistic prayers soberly not for fear God will not answer them but mindful of the cost through which he will accomplish them. This brings me back again to my shitty little intercessory prayers. My evangelistic prayers are in fact costly not only for me, but in fact far more costly for my heavenly father. He too is the father of my children and does not want to see them suffer, yet knows that they will. Once again we see how all of this in fact lines up with Jesus himself for the process by which my children will end their idolatrous relationship with all comforts so easily afforded in this creation is precisely the path he devoted his son to blaze. His son’s pain, unlike my pain and the pain of my children was voluntary and not needed for himself yet he pursued and accomplished it.

When I pray evangelistically for others, and especially my own children all of this is on my mind. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, come quickly.