By the time you’re a senior about to graduate, you have learned a lot of things. Like talking in front of people is bound to happen whether you like it or not, tests happen all the time and your mind, body and sleeping schedule can’t handle you stressing about every one, and not everyone around you has heard the Gospel or even seen a glimpse of Jesus. While I may have a little insight into the first two, I am going to share about the last one and what living among the lost means to me and what it looks like in my life.

Living among the lost sounds like a scary place to be. Does that mean you are the guide to everyone around you or are you lost as well? Well to clear that up. The lost means those who don’t know Jesus. And living among them means you are right in the think of life with them. Are you a tour guide? Not necessarily. Are you a friend of theirs who happens to know Jesus? Yes.

So how do you find these places where the lost live? Well, you probably already live there. Let me explain. In Matthew 9:37-38, "Jesus says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field."

So the first part Jesus flat out says there are a ton of people out there who need him. But then he also says the people that are going out to explain the Gospel are few. He wants workers out his harvest fields. Those harvest fields are all over. I am sure you are in and out of them all day long.

Think of campus life. We have scholarship halls, residence halls, classrooms, the rec, apartment complexes, organizations, events and basketball games, yes I counted them as more than an event. They are special all in their own right. I would guess most of you interact with people in one of those places daily.

Now to take it a step further. Live for Jesus there. That is how you live among the lost. Sure any Christian can live with people, but actually living means stepping out of your own life and being a part of others. It reminds of the verse from our bible study. 1 Thessalonians 2:8. "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the Gospel of God but our lives as well."

They didn’t want to just show them the Gospel and leave or just live with them and never bring up the Gospel. They wanted to build a relationship and grow together with Jesus. They went past living. They wanted more. They wanted Jesus to living in the mix with them.

Now for me, the harvest field has been my hall. Not quite like the fields back at home, it’s pretty tall and surrounded by cement, but for the last few years I have been living among the lost on campus.

As part of my job, I get to know the people I like around and one floor pretty well. Part of my job is making sure people feel welcome into the building and helping them succeed.

When I first started my job, I actually had no idea what effects I could have on people as far as the Gospel went. But God showed me over time that I could make a godly influence in my hall. I started knocking on doors about Bible Study, and after a lot of knocks, a few faithful girls have come to Bible Study and have continued walking with God. I remember knocking on Ali and Kelli’s door in August. They were freshman girls interested in seeing what Bible study might look like. I remember at one of our first meetings, we talked about memorizing verses. Kelli told me no one had every asked her to memorize a verse. And now it is May, and Kelli has all of the verses from Bible Study memorized. By living with others, we were challenged to know our verses each week, and as a reward we got awesome sea life stickers on our Fist Pump for Jesus Bible Study bookmarks. If I didn’t live in Ellsworth, none of that would have ever happened in my life.

I wanted to live among the lost and have people see a difference in how I lived. Sometimes little things like Brenna why don’t you cuss or drink all the time turn into great conversations of the heart. And those conversations only started because I was living among the lost, and God was using my life to reach others.

God didn’t say reaching the harvest would be easy or that living among the lost would always be ideal, but he did command us to reach people.

But I think the most important part about living among the lost that I have learned is the lost are everywhere. I just have to make sure to be available where I am for God to use.

So even though I have no idea what the future has in store for me at the moment, God will place me somewhere where I can live among the lost, and he has already placed you there to. So I challenge you to think about where you live and who you are around. What could living among the lost look like in your life?