Tact

As I said before, we found a house in southern Germany and will be moving there next week. But while we were down there looking at houses, we stayed for a week in a vacation apt that was owned by a sweet older farming couple.

They let the girls help them gather eggs from the henhouse and pick cherries. They even gave us over $15 worth of cherries from their trees. She took us to show us their orchards, he showed me the "Still" he had in his barn, which he uses for making Schnapps (see picture, right), and took the kids on a tractor ride for Ashton's birthday (don't worry Granddad, you won't be replaced!)... they even helped us look through the want ads for houses.

We really enjoyed talking with them (only in German!). On one of the last days we were there, I mentioned how beautiful one of the roadside crosses was. She said it was an old German custom to bless the roads by building a roadside shrine.

Then she shared how she was confused by the last couple they met (Christians) whose children were going to the same school ours will attend. This lady had told her of how Germans shouldn't have these crosses everywhere. To paraphrase this lady's own words, "Jesus is not on the Cross anymore, so why should we make all these shrines."

I shared with our host that the lady was probably only trying to point out that she would rather celebrate the resurrection, and not just the death of Jesus Christ. This seemed to make sense to our host, and it opened up a short opportunity to share about how the Cross brought us forgiveness of sins. This happened because we invested in a relationship with them, and were willing to accept them for who they are.

It's important to always use tact when seeking to communicate spiritual truth to a lost person. Paul exemplified the use of tact in Acts 17:16-31... we should do the same!