Planting Gospel Seeds
Yesterday, my wife and I traveled back to Boone, NC where we served for 18 years ministering to college students. While there for a couple of medical appointments (routine), we (providentially I believe) saw a friend who, during our time in Boone, had been praying one day a week with other faithful women for the students at Appalachian State University. She excitedly reported how the Lord is working to answer those prayers for a movement of the Holy Spirit and revival to come to the campus.
In 2019, I began going to the campus mall weekly to offer “free prayer.” It was not my idea, but the Lord’s. Sitting near a main sidewalk with my yard sign (FREE PRAYER) near me, I waited for students to come to me. Over the three years I did this, in cold weather and rain, through COVID, and sometimes in bright sunshine, I had dozens of students approach me, some hesitantly and others boldly, to ask for prayer. I didn’t call to them; they came to me. There were relationship problems, relatives who were ill or who had died, life-altering decisions to make, worries about projects and exams, and some who just wanted to chat. I was ignored most of the time, sometimes mocked, and occasionally offered encouragement by expressions of appreciation for what I was doing.
Our friend remembered me doing this. My wife also ministered to some of the students who stopped by for prayer. I remember one transgender student who cussed at me when he walked by, but later came back and talked with my wife who was across the way training a student in prayer. This young man, a pastor’s kid, was mad at the church, among other things. Yet when she showed him love and kindness, he began to open up. In the weeks and months that passed, we would walk past him and his group of friends and stop and chat for a few minutes. There was a wholesale change in his demeanor.
Our friend credited us with planting the seeds she said are now germinating. She and a group of moms are weekly offering themselves up as “free moms” to students to give hugs, treats, and, if requested, prayers. She said students are lining up by the dozens, and at North Carolina State where there is a similar group, hundreds, waiting to be loved on in some way.
My wife and I returned home much encouraged by this demonstration of love for young people. It also heightened our awareness of how spiritually and emotionally needy young people are at this moment. It is as if, even with families and often church backgrounds, they are like orphans. Their lives are empty of that deep intimacy of godly love that we each were created for. James 1:27 says: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. . . . This is a reminder of our responsibilities as the body of Christ.
As Christian parents and grandparents, we need to be diligent and mindful that we are truly giving our kids the love that they need and what that looks like on a day-to-day basis. As believers, we need to exercise our faith by loving young people, who for whatever reason, have an orphan spirit and are longing to be loved. Through us they can realize they are loved by God, thereby planting “gospel seeds” in their lives that we can pray will germinate and grow into wonderful expressions of faith in our Lord Jesus—our God and our Redeemer.
Author’s Note: I am changing the schedule with my blog posts. Rather than on Tuesdays, I will be posting in the future on Wednesdays. This will allow me to do my social media reels on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find those on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
© Jim Musser 2023 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.
