God wants you to be a Loner!
I once heard that there was study conducted with teenagers and the power of peer pressure. The study took 15 teenagers and put them in a room. 14 of the teenagers were in on the study and were told what answer to give. The 15th teenager was not told anything about the study and thought he and the other teenagers were all on the same page. The instructor had two colored cards that he held up for them, one was red and one was blue. The 14 teenagers that were told how to answer the question were told to say both cards were blue when the instructor asked what color. So as the experiment started, the first 14 teenagers said that both cards were blue when asked…when it got to the 15th teenager, 76% of the time the teenager would say both cards were blue, instead of saying one was blue and one was red.
When the teenagers were asked why they said both were blue, they said because they did not want to answer different or be the only one to say something different. The peer pressure of being different or standing up to say something was to powerful for most to say what they really saw or believed.
That same experiment was done again, but this time, just one of the 14 teenagers was told to say the cards were red and blue, while the other 13 were still to say both were blue. Do you know that the 76% dropped to 35% when just one other person in the room would say that the cards were red and blue. One other person in the room was a powerful enough voice to give confidence 36% of the time for that lone teenager to speak out and say what the correct answer was.
Put this in the context of you and me as a spiritual voice in whatever area God has you right now. What if there were people around us who wanted to know God, who needed a Savior, but because of their fear of being the only one they just remained quiet and went about their “routine of life”?
From the study above, it would mean that 76% of those “lost” people around us would probably never speak up or seek a Savior. However, if you and I were that one that stood up and we were open about our relationship with God…that 76% could drop to 35%, which means 36% of those around you may feel more comfortable reaching out to find God.
Many times people find themselves in the same boat you and I have been in, and they are just waiting for someone to pioneer the way so they can look and say…”see it happened to him or her, its okay, there is hope.” It makes it easier for them if someone paves the way for them to follow.
This was true with my testimony, when I was in front of the church saying:
I went to church all my life, I walked an aisle and asked for God to come into my heart, I worked for a large evangelical organization with Christians all around me and I knew what to say around those type of people, however I never had a personal relationship with Jesus…
…man did that open a door for so many others who had the same experience to really examine their relationship with God and it made it easier for them to come forward and deal with it.
I encourage you to be the one lone voice, like the second experiment above that allows the 76% to come down to 35%. Just your willingness to be open about your relationship with God, allows God room to move and draw people to Him.
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