The {Guest} Post About How Jesus Uses Draw Something

Today's guest rabbit chaser is Shawn from Tales From Street Road. I know Shawn in real life. He's a friend and the Worship Minister at my church. I know he has weird feet. I know he's an expert in bacon. I know he wants to be an actual superhero. I also know he loves God and His people. 

Are you playing Draw Something? If you’re not, you should be.

Draw Something is a very addicting game for iPhone. You draw a picture and the person you're playing against receives your drawing and has to guess what it is.

It’s awesomesauce.

(I might not ever say that again. I heard it on TV recently and liked it. But it’s just weird coming from me. Right? I thought so.)

Recently, Draw Something has been more than just fun for me.

When I started playing, I chose to play a random stranger, since I wasn’t sure how to connect to someone I knew. The game matched me with Aroma J. I didn’t know anything about this person except their profile pic was Rhett Butler from Gone With The Wind.

A few weeks ago, Aroma had to draw a pic of David Beckham and wrote "football” on it. Before I drew my next picture, I wrote back “I see you called ‘soccer’ football. What non-US country are you from?” That’s when I learned that Aroma is from Qatar.

I thought it was pretty cool to be playing a game with someone in another country. The game continued uneventful until Easter Sunday. Before I drew my picture for the game, I drew a cross and wrote “Happy Easter! He is Risen!”

The reply I got blew my mind....

“Who is Risen?”

{Blink. Blink.} (as a certain rabbit chaser might say.)

What a great question. I think it’s the question every Christian would love to hear. What an incredible opportunity God had just given me to share about Jesus Christ.

I replied “I am a follower of Jesus Christ. We’ve just celebrated Easter, a celebration of what happened 2000 yrs ago when God’s son, Jesus, died on a cross for me and you, then rose again. I’d like to talk to you more about this if you’re interested.” And I left it at that.

A day later I received this reply. “Jesus is not God’s son. But He was taken up into heaven alive and someone who looked like Jesus was killed on the cross. Jesus will come back and rule the world before Judgment day.”

My jaw hit the floor. What? Where did this fiction come from? How do I even reply to this?

Before I replied, I looked to my friend The Google.

The Google was very helpful. It taught me that what Aroma had said is what Muslims believe about Jesus. I felt so ignorant. I had no clue Muslims even acknowledged Jesus existed. I clearly was not prepared to get into this type of conversation. I replied back something like...“I see you have an Islamic belief of Jesus. Looks like we disagree on what is true about Jesus.”

Then I drew a snowman.

I mean, we still had a game going.

God has taught me a lot in the past week through this.

1. For years I’ve been saying I’m seeking doors God will open for me to share the Gospel. But in truth, I’m guilty of waiting for a trap door to open underneath me and drop me in. I haven’t really been looking at all. Who knows how many opportunities I missed because I wasn’t paying attention.

2. God can use us regardless of our skill level. In this situation, God used someone who draws like this...

 

...to play a drawing game and start a potentially life changing conversation.

3. I have so much to learn. Living in the buckle of the Bible belt makes it relatively easy to share Christ. But I was unprepared to talk about how what I believe is true and what Aroma believes is not. I’m pretty sure my part of that conversation would make less and less sense as it progressed and would just turn into me just saying “I’m right!, You’re wrong! Nee-ner, Nee-ner, Nee-ner!”

I’m sure that won’t really happen. We’re keeping our comments very friendly.

We’ve both said something like “The truth is...” Then we draw a happy face to keep it as friendly as possible.

That makes something offensive not offensive, right?

Anyway, Aroma and I are still playing Draw Something.

We're still having very brief conversations about our different faiths and cultures.

Please pray with me that God will open Aroma’s heart to the truth of Jesus Christ.

That would be awesomesauce!

(That’s the last time. I promise.)
 
Shawn Stinson is a Christ Follower, Husband, Father, Worship Leader, Sales Rep, Blogger, Gamer, and All Around Nerd. 

Read his blog, Tales From Street Road. Follow him on Twitter. Like him on Facebook.