Two weeks ago Monday, I had an assignment in my Evangelism course to share the gospel with an unbeliever. The night before, I was discouraged and felt like a horrible student and a horrible Christian for not getting it done. A good friend reminded me that one assignment can’t define me, and he cheered me up.

My professor granted me another week, so I continued talking to people and turning conversations to spiritual things. Frustratingly, by last Sunday night, I still hadn’t been able to talk with a lost person.

A friend and I were going around town (not easy without a car) and talking with people; most were students or alumni of our school as well as believers. I had talked to over twenty people over the course of the semester, and even though I had seen God move in the lives of a few of the believers my friends and I had talked to, I was ready to quit and just fail the assignment.

I was about to leave the coffeeshop when a man set down his cell phone and started to stare into space. I went over to him and started talking.

His name was Henry. He said he’d lived there in town his whole life, almost proof that he had already heard the gospel. I asked him where he went to church (I’m still looking for one), and he said he didn’t go.

“Why not?”

“Nobody’s ever told me what all that’s about.”

Really?

“Would you like me to tell you what Christians believe?”

So I pulled up a chair, and for the next few minutes, I shared with him the gospel. I didn’t use any formulas or methods, just the gospel. I explained sin, and without me even asking him, he told me he knew he had sinned. I explained the meaning of the death of Jesus, and he nodded and followed along. When I told him that anyone who believes and turns from their way to God’s way will be made right with God, and asked him if all this was something he wanted to believe, he said yes.

Henry and I prayed, and I asked a few questions to make sure he “got it”. My roommate met me halfway and brought me my Bible from my dorm to give to him. When I came back, Henry was sitting with the alumni and talking and laughing with them. My friend had an assignment due online that night, so we had to leave, and on the way back, I was ecstatic.

The thought that gave me so much joy was not that I was a success, that I could be happy now and not depressed, or that I had done a great job sharing the gospel, but the thought that God came through. He didn’t have to use me, or stop me before I quit, or even save Henry. But He did.

God came through.