A lot of the wording in this post comes from the Pastor Chuck Coulson (the Canadian Baptist version!), but I can testify that the experience this explains is a reality and it can be very discouraging if you don’t know that God is doing something during the storms and darker periods in our lives.
I wrote this response to someone who asked how much someone needs to know to start giving out the gospel.
A lot of evangelizing is like teaching someone to ride a bike — you don’t have to know all the science behind it, you just have had to get on yourself. You can be a witness, you can be an Andrew and lead others to those that know Jesus. But there also is power in waiting on God.
Paul spent years making tents. We get saved — 1st base. we go while we grow perhaps, but there is the 2nd base experience that is where God sanctifies us and gets the self out of us. Most churches rush you from 1st right to 3rd — service.
But 2nd is where you learn to have a burden, where you learn to not just relay what you know but WHO you know.
For now, witness, by all means. pass out tracts, yes. But also see the purpose in the years that follow that seem very discouraging because it is here that God gets the Egypt out of us, after He got us out of Egypt.
“You can evangelize from 1st base on, but you really can’t disciple without the 2nd base experience.