Selling Your Faith

It's funny sometimes how easy it is for me to make analogies. I do some of my best thinking driving down the road. (I'm sure that should probably be very scary). Anyway, today, I was talking with someone who wasn't really sure what religion she was because her parents were two different religions and her beliefs don't really line up with either one. As we continued to talk, she stated that she believed in re-incarnation in some cases. She stated that she believed that a person could be reincarnated over and over until they get something right. I totally disagree, but. . . I was at a loss for how to show her that God doesn't let you live out a moment over and over and over until you get it right. What does this have to do with analogies, you may ask? Well, I've worked a lot of jobs, and one of the things that I'm doing right now for fun and extra money is selling Avon. Now, if I'm going to sell something successfully, I need to know the product, don't you think? If I don't know how something works or if it works or what it looks like, I cannot assist my customers in determining if that product is right for them or not. Today, when I made that connection, I had to say, "God, forgive me for being unable to sell the product today." Because I have been lax in my studies, I could not pull out a Bible verse or an instance in the Bible that shows that she was wrong. Then it fully connected: my lack of knowledge could make the difference in Heaven or Hell for someone. If you don't use it, you lose it. If I don't keep reading and learning and growing, one day, my stunted spiritual growth could lead to a major failure, a failure in which I am unable to "sell the product," a failure that leads a person whom God lovingly created to reject the "product" and spend eternity in Hell. I am grateful that today was not that day.