Your Life is Already Speaking

Years ago, when I was a new teacher, I attended an orientation for new employees in our school district. One of the presenters warned those of us who lived in the southern part of the county to be careful in public. The area was growing, she explained, but it was still small enough that wherever you went, you were likely to run into students, parents, or coworkers.

I remember thinking it was exaggerated.

Until Walmart.

I was standing at the customer service counter trying to return something. The woman helping me was giving me attitude, and I could feel my irritation rising. I wanted to give her some attitude right back. Then I remembered orientation.

Wait. Who is around me? What if one of my students was nearby? What if a parent recognized me and thought, That's Mrs. Green?

The school district had warned me that wherever I went, I represented them. I knew I represented Someone else.

That moment changed the way I thought about being a witness. I had associated witnessing with something intentional: sharing my testimony, talking about Jesus, inviting someone to church, saying something spiritual.

What if our lives are bearing witness long before we ever open our mouths?

The People We Walk Past

A religious scholar once asked Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29, NLT). Jesus answered with a story about a man beaten and left half dead beside the road. A priest and a Levite each saw him and crossed to the other side. A Samaritan man stopped, tended his wounds, and carried him somewhere to recover.

Jesus turned the question back on the scholar: "Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same" (Luke 10:36-37, NLT).

Being a witness is more than something we say. It is often something we see.

Wherever People Gather

Anywhere people gather becomes an opportunity to notice. It can be as simple as sitting on a plane and watching someone struggle to lift a suitcase into the overhead bin. I'm not a strong person, but I have said "Can I help you?" to more people than I can count in moments like that. The opportunity is rarely dramatic. It's just someone within reach who needs a hand.

I was reminded of that again during an ordinary trip to the store. My son and I were walking through the aisles when I noticed a woman in a wheelchair in front of us. A shopping cart had been left diagonally beside her, blocking the aisle and making it hard for her to move.

I stopped and asked, "Can I help you? Can I move this for you?"

"Oh, please," she said. "Thank you. I can't get up, and it was left there."

I moved the cart out of her way. She thanked me again and said, "God bless you." Then she said something that stayed with me: so many people had passed by and hadn't noticed her struggle.

There was nothing extraordinary about what I did. I moved a shopping cart.

That may be exactly the point. How many opportunities to love our neighbor look completely ordinary? Sometimes the person beside the road isn't lying wounded in the dust. Sometimes she's sitting in a wheelchair, unable to get around a shopping cart, while people keep walking past.

When Our Scars Help Us See

Noticing requires us to look around at others and offer a glimpse of compassion and hope. Sometimes it requires us to listen long enough to hear what someone is carrying.

I was shopping one day when I began talking with two sisters. It was an ordinary conversation between strangers. Then one sister mentioned she was leaving, and that her sister had just moved here and was having a hard time being alone because her husband had died recently.

Suddenly she wasn't simply another woman I happened to meet in a grocery store. I have walked that same road for a long time.

"My husband died too," I told her.

We talked for a while. Before I left, I gave her my phone number and invited her to church. I told her she could call me if she ever wanted to talk or meet for coffee.

I couldn't take away her grief. I couldn't fix what had happened. I could offer her hope.

Our scars sometimes help us recognize wounds that other people cannot see. God does not waste the places in us that have been broken. The grief we know can help us recognize grief. The loneliness we have experienced can help us notice the person standing alone. Our wounds can become places from which compassion grows.

Your Life Is Already Speaking

Our lives are already speaking long before we say anything about Jesus. The people in our homes, our workplaces, and the strangers we pass on any ordinary day experience something through the way we respond to them.

As we remain in Christ, His life shapes ours. His compassion begins changing what catches our attention. His patience affects the way we respond to the difficult person in front of us. His mercy makes us willing to be interrupted.

In John 15, Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5, NLT). The branch doesn't manufacture fruit through determination. It stays connected to its source of life.

That distinction matters, because Christian witness can easily become another assignment: be nicer, try harder, notice more people, make sure everyone sees Jesus in you. The fruit comes from abiding, not from striving.

You rarely know what the person in front of you is carrying. She may have lost her job this morning. He may have buried someone he loved last week. The cashier, the stranger in line, the person across the aisle, each one is walking through something you cannot see. But they can experience patience. They can experience compassion. They can experience what happens when someone who has been loved by Christ notices them.

Your life is already speaking.

May it bear faithful witness to Him.

If this post reminded you that your life is speaking too, I'd love for you to share it with a friend who needs the encouragement today. And if the idea of waiting on God while still bearing witness resonates with you, my book Even in the Silence: Finding Joy in the Waiting dives deeper into that journey.

Famia Green

Author | Blogger | Bible Teacher

📚 Even in the Silence: Finding Joy in the Waiting – Amazon

🌸 Blog: The Joy Pursuit Journey

❤️ Newsletter: Subscribe Here

📷 Instagram: @famiagreen

🌿 Substack: @famiagreen