We are witnesses.

Jesus declared it, and so it must be.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

Not I would like for you to be my witnesses or even I command you to be my witnesses but you will be my witnesses.

We who claim to be Christ-followers, we who carry the very name of Christ, we are His witnesses.

Whether we like or not.

We might be good witnesses.

We might be bad witnesses.

But make no mistake, we are witnesses.

Do you see that verb?

To be

Not you will witness but you will be my witness.

It is a state of being. A way of life. A walking along the Way that communicates the Truth about Life.

You do, of course, have to have witnessed something in order to be a witness.

It is not enough only to have heard about God, we must have experienced Him in order to be a good witness.

‘It is one thing,’ said Henry Suso, ‘to hear for oneself a sweet lute, sweetly played, and quite another thing merely to hear about it.’ And it is one thing, we may add, to hear truth inwardly for one’s very self, and quite another thing merely to hear about it…One word from the lips of the man who has actually heard the lute play will have more effect than a score of sermons by the man who has only heard that it was played. ~ A. W. Tozer

Experience is always better than secondhand.

And what if you have never truly witnessed God, never experienced His Holy Spirit? Or what if it has simply been a very long time?

Go away. Find time, make time to get by yourself. Sit before Him in silence. Wait. Do this over and over, refusing to let go until He lets Himself be known.

It does not have to come in any dramatic way. It mostly, in fact, does not. He was not, after all, in the great wind or the earthquake or the fire.

Most often He comes in the stillness, in the quiet. He comes in the little, in the overlooked. He comes in the still, small voice.

Which is why we must be silent and alone regularly in order to experience Him.

Once you do, however, He will, slow and small change by slow and small change, transform you into the witness He wants you to be.

Whether you even realize it or not.

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Art credits: The Road to Emmaus by Claes Corneliszoon Moeyaert; Jesus and the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; The Road to Emmaus by Robert Zund