Selling Shoes
Two shoe salesmen are assigned territories in Southern Ohio as they take their first job out of school.
After their initial day on the job the first salesman told his boss, "This is useless, I went out to my territory, drove downtown, walked up and down main street, and this is going to be terrible! How am I going to make any sales when nobody around here wears any shoes!"
Just then the second rookie salesman, fresh off his first day in an adjacent territory, walks up to his boss, just beaming. The boss asks, "Why are you so happy?" The rookie says, "I just spent a day in my territory, driving up and down main street, and I am so excited! Everybody here needs shoes!"
I've often wondered if the church has vacillated between these two polarities as we follow Jesus' command to go preach the Good News - to go reap that rich harvest of people who have yet to more fully discover the Gospel.
We can carry attitudes that pivot between impossibility and opportunity - impossibility that nothing ever changes, and the opportunity that it can.
At the heart is our belief:
Is our "product" all it's cracked up to be? Does it really bring peace and fulfillment? Are kindness, selflessness, love, and forgiveness really The Way?
It's been said that good salesman all have one thing in common: they thoroughly believe in their product and in the company that produces it.
Then maybe witnessing to the work of God is less about the customer and more about the salesman. Having the world fall more deeply in love with Jesus starts when his representatives do the same thing.
