What makes a conversation meaningful?

“What if I say something wrong?”

It’s impossible to know how many thousands of conversations have almost happened, how many people have almost heard about Christ, and how many people have nearly joined the family of God but have remained in ignorance due to the fear we often have in saying something wrong when witnessing to a lost loved one.

Unfortunately, the temptation for many Christians is to wait for the perfect moment, words, or opportunity to tell someone the Gospel or have an apologetic conversation with them. We tell ourselves that we need to be ready for every question, and if the conversation doesn’t go well, then we’re the reason that person will never come to saving faith. These are all lies from the enemy. In reality, all God wants is for us to be willing vessels who will speak truth in love, allowing God to do what He wants to do in the life of the unbeliever. So, with this in mind, we must ask ourselves, what makes a conversation meaningful?

A meaningful conversation can look very different each time. It can look like a brief conversation with a waitress at the restaurant, catching up with someone in the aisle at Church, or calling your mom for 5 minutes each day. It is not the time or place that makes a conversation meaningful, nor is it always the depth of the content. Rather, it is the intention behind the conversation. The right intention always comes from the right knowledge.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:6, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.” He connects this with the idea that we are fellow laborers with Christ, working with God to spread the Gospel to all men. His point in the garden analogy is to show that the weight of someone’s salvation is not on our shoulders, nor is it dependent on our ability to speak well or be as convincing as possible. It is God who saves, while we are called to simply work beside him, planting seeds, watering those seeds, and watching God give the growth.

So, a meaningful Gospel or apologetic conversation is allowed to look like a thousand different things, as long as we acknowledge that our role is to tell the truth in love and serve our fellow man, allowing God to work through our witness. We need not worry about saying the wrong thing or stumbling over our words when it is God who makes us alive in him.

Take confidence in God’s ability to use even the foolishness of man to soften the hardest of hearts, and start having meaningful conversations everywhere you go. Be salt and light in your schools, workplace, and homes, telling others the good news of the Gospel, the beauty of Christianity, and the overwhelming love of Jesus Christ, no matter how it comes out. The result does not determine whether or not the conversation was meaningful or not. Let God take care of the result, while you speak the truth of Scripture in love.