I got on the plane completely worn out. After training a large group of religious sisters in how to do hands-on evangelization for a weekend, I was tired. So, I wanted to put on my headphones and drift into my nothing box. But, as is usually the case, God had different plans for me.

My conscience was triggered by the fact that I had trained others for evangelization, but wasn’t taking the opportunity to even try to engage the person next to me. So I debated God, because I still didn’t want to do it (let’s be honest - sometimes we have to make ourselves choose the right thing). To make a long story a bit longer, I tried to talk to the woman beside me, who happened to be reading a magazine on new age crystal power (seriously!), but she refused to talk to me.
Why did God want me to talk to her, just to get shut down?

Many might consider this a “failure” in evangelization and at the time I probably would have agreed. But after praying about it, I found that God had something to surprise me with. The fact is - there are times we are trying to serve others, when in fact God wants to serve us. This was one of those times. God didn’t want my “success” at evangelization, he wanted my faithfulness to the mission. It isn’t so much about the outcome or result of my efforts as it is how much I trust that he can do something amazing, even if the other person wants nothing to do with me. So, what did he do in this instance? He changed my heart. He gave me a passionate detachment from success in evangelization.

Jesus’ greatest passion is his love for each one of us. He wants us all to go to heaven and be with him forever. Jesus wants to save you, me, and everyone else from sin and death. But, he won’t force anyone. Rather, he gave us free will and respects it so much, that he allows us to choose to love him back or spend eternity apart from him. Does this means he desires that some go to hell? No. Yet some still will. While we may not know who these people are, the ones who have never put their faith in Jesus are in spiritual danger. So many don’t know about Jesus and it is our job to share Jesus passion for salvation of the world. When we share this passion, we can’t help but evangelize.

This is the key to being a great evangelist. It isn’t about success. It isn’t about winning. It isn’t about the numbers. It is about faithfulness to the mission of Jesus. Saying “yes”, in faith, to whatever God gives us each day.

But, that doesn't mean we will always have others who choose to respond in the way we want them to.

There are three people to consider when we evangelize - God, others, and myself. I control only myself and God always shows up to do his part. So, why would we worry about the other person’s response? Because we (partially) share God's passion for the salvation of the other person. We want good things for them. Still, there is something else God wants from us - detachment from getting results and our desires fulfilled. If God respects their freedom, we ought to do the same.

This detachment is able to give every evangelist freedom from worrying about what someone else might choose, while at the same time desiring salvation for them. This is the balancing act of what I call, “passionate detachment”. Detachment does not mean indifference, but the freedom from worrying about results. Fr. Jacques Phillipe shows us this trait in this passage:

“The detachment we should aim for is not that of saying “to hell with all of it,” or of becoming indifferent to everything, or of practicing a sort of forced asceticism and stripping ourselves of everything that makes up our lives; that kind of detachment is not what our Lord normally asks for. But we need to keep our hearts in an attitude of detachment, maintaining a sort of freedom, a distance, an inner reserve, that will mean that if some particular thing, or habit, or relationship, or personal plan is taken from us, we don’t make a drama out of being deprived of it. Such detachment should be exercised in all aspects of our lives.”

You can sum this up with “thy will be done”.
Let us live out Jesus’ passion for souls today. Let us be great evangelists who live out our faith with passionate detachment. Let us do our part and leave the rest in God's hands. It is all he asks of us.