Dear Julie,<\/p>\n
Although I commend you for your creativity, you really don\u2019t have to tangle yourself up so much to explain the faith to your unbelieving friends.\u00a0 Your discouragement at not being able to convince your roommate that Christianity is true is, if I may be blunt, hardly Christian.\u00a0 Remember, you can\u2019t convert anybody.\u00a0 All you can do is courageously and enthusiastically bear witness in word and deed, pray, and trust in God.\u00a0 The example of today\u2019s saint may help assuage your anxiety.<\/p>\n
Julius had been a soldier in the Roman army for almost thirty years \u2013 which means that he had reenlisted voluntarily after the normal tour of duty.\u00a0 He had seven separate campaigns under his belt and at some point during his illustrious military career had become a Christian.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t cause him any problems until the persecution initiated by the Emperor Diocletian, which tried in vain to cleanse the entire Roman Empire of Christianity.\u00a0 He was denounced by his fellow soldiers (while he was on campaign in modern day Bulgaria), brought before the magistrate, and ordered to abjure his faith.\u00a0 He refused.\u00a0 In fact, he defended the truth of the Gospel with gusto.<\/p>\n
The Roman official was loath to lose such a dowdy soldier, and tried various tactics (including bribery) to get Julius to burn just a little bit of incense to the Roman gods.\u00a0 Julius, however, put into action the determination he had forged through years of hard living, and stayed faithful to his true King, Jesus Christ.\u00a0 History preserves much of the conversation he had with his executioners.\u00a0 One of his best lines came in response to a tedious query as to why he stayed faithful to a dead man rather than to a living emperor.\u00a0 He explained: \u201cIt was he [Christ] who died for our sins to give us eternal life. This same man, Christ, is God and abides for ever and ever. Whoever believes in Him will have eternal life; whoever denies Him will have eternal punishment.\u201d\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine a more concise or accurate summary of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s my point.\u00a0 Julius didn\u2019t worry about giving \u201cjust the right argument\u201d.\u00a0 He explained what he believed as best he could, and trusted that God would take care of the rest.\u00a0 And God did.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know if that magistrate become a Christian, but we do know that St Julius\u2019 courage bolstered a fellow Christian soldier, St Hesychius, who went to the chopping block a couple days later.\u00a0 And we also know that the Roman Empire ended up embracing the Christian faith en masse, a few more years down the road.<\/p>\n
So don\u2019t worry so much.\u00a0 Trust that God will take your best effort and make it bear unimaginable and disproportionate fruit.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t give this advice to all your cousins, since some of them are just plain lazy and need to be made uncomfortable with their passivity, but you tend towards the opposite extreme.\u00a0 Try to relax.\u00a0 God wants your roommate to find Christ infinitely more than you do.<\/p>\n
Your loving uncle,<\/p>\n
Eddy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Julie, Although I commend you for your creativity, you really don\u2019t have to tangle yourself up so much to explain the faith to your unbelieving friends.\u00a0 Your discouragement at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":145992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3719],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-142477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncle-eddy"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"","pp_force_visibility":null,"pp_subpost_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_force_visibility":null,"pp_inherited_subpost_visibility":null,"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n