Have you become frustrated with friends and family members who continue year after year in unbelief? Do you feel like its useless to keep witnessing? You may think that they’ll never repent. For every Christian who is tempted to give up, here is an illustration that may help. Draw a horizontal line representing a person’s life. The left starting point represents their birth; the right ending point represents their death. Now draw a single vertical line that intersects the timeline anywhere. Imagine this line represents the moment they get saved. Now look at the horizontal time line. Do you notice something? Conversion happens in a moment. But the vast majority of their life is either before or after this moment in time.
Now remember salvation is the miraculous work of the Lord. Our responsibility is to be a witness leading to that point, and then to disciple after they are saved. All the years before the point of their salvation is our opportunity to love them, till up the fallow ground, plant the good word, water through prayer and repeat.
Peter writes “The Lord…is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” God is very patient. We too need to be patient. Keep praying for them, keep serving them, and keep planting those good seeds. And remember God promises that His Word never returns void!