It took place in Vancouver, B.C.  My wife and I wanted to try some authentic Canadian food, so we went out for some pizza.  We were surprised to find that beaver was not included with the 3-meat pizza option.  So, we settled on Canadian bacon instead.

A teenage waitress came to take our order.  She happened to glance at the words on my T-shirt and asked, “What’s that about?”  I had no idea.  I am still asleep when I put my clothes on each morning. 

So, I looked down at it and could make out the word “worship.”  So, I stuttered and said, “It’s about worship.”  She said, “Yeah, but what’s that about?” 

So, in my articulate way I said, “Well, it’s about worship!”  She said, “Yeah but what’s that about?”  At that point my wife rescued me and said, “He is a Christian and the shirt says that he is committed to worshipping Jesus.” 

The girl said, “That’s what I thought.”  Then she put her order pad down and took the waist band at the front of her pants and lowered it 4 inches – to the point that I was trying to find somewhere else to look. 

It was a tattooed outline of a fish.  She wanted me to show me that she was also a Christian.  But I wasn’t sure what to say, “Yeah, that’s a nice fish!” 

She was actually following a practice that dated back to early days of Christianity.  For the first 300 years, believers were fiercely persecuted.  They learned to cautiously connect with each other by using the sign of the fish. 

When a Christian met a stranger back then, he or she would draw the outline of a fish in the sand.  The two intersecting arcs, were meaningless scribble to those who did not understand it, but for the fellow Christian, it opened the door for the two of them to talk about Jesus. 

Why a fish?  The Greek word for fish is “icthus.”   The letters formed an acrostic in the Greek language that was understood by Christians.  The I stood for Jesus; the CT for Christ, the H for God; the U for Son; and the S for Savior.  The sum of it being, “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” 

An amazing weight of truth is bound up in that acrostic.  The fish is a perfectly simple symbol to communicate the essence of our faith.

I was embarrassed that day in Canada.  No, it wasn’t the brazen tattoo but rather my buried faith that bothered me.

It was the apostle Peter who wrote, “…always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks about the hope you possess.” – 1 Peter 3:15 – NETBible ®

I was not ready!   The girl was asking me.  She was relentlessly questioning me trying to get me to own up to my faith.  I wasn’t ready – I was resistant. 

She must have been a young believer and probably needed a little more modesty and I a lot more initiative.

I have never been stellar at personally sharing my faith.  It is true, I have stood before thousands and fearlessly preached the Gospel, but I am not always ready to spontaneously share with others.

So, these days I often ask the Lord in the morning to remind me to mention His name throughout the day.  When the clerk at the convenience store asks, “How you doin?”  I might say, “My Lord is taking good care of me.”   When the man in line, in front of me, says, “Looks like bad weather is coming.”  I could say, “Yes, but it makes me glad that Jesus is looking after me.”

I am praying that such comments might be kick starters to more substantive conversations about Jesus. 

Not only do I want to be prepared to share my faith, I want to be proactive about it.  I’d like to make my little Canadian friend proud. 

A PRAYER: God gives me the boldness of that young Canadian girl. 

This has been Jim Johnson and pickleheavenpress.com

May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.