What if this was true for Christ-followers?

Anyone who knows me, or pays attention to my goings on, knows that this weekend was my second half marathon weekend.  Yes, I did the half insanity again, beat my first half marathon time by 16 minutes (easy to do if you had the foot issues I had last year :) ), and had an absolutely fantastic weekend touring Savannah, St. Simons Island, and lots of traffic jams.  I really felt truly blessed this weekend (maybe not for the traffic jams, but for everything else :) ).

Thinking through the weekend, a couple of deja vu conversations got me thinking.  The first one was at the McDonald's in Dublin, GA.  I was ordering a snack wrap and a coffee drink, and this woman behind me in line strikes up a conversation like this... 

"Are you running the full or the half?"

This person happened to be traveling to her home in Savannah and knew about the race (it was a pretty big deal for Savannah), and her husband had just completed the Marine Corps Marathon the week before and still in recovery so the Savannah race wasn't on their calendar.  She mentioned that she saw a lot of people on the road heading for the race. etc. etc.  

It got me thinking though... How did she know I was running?  I was wearing my Saucony's, and I do have skinny legs, but I wasn't really looking all that "runnery" (at least I thought I didn't) at the time.  Maybe she noticed the "13.1" sticker on the back of my car.  I just thought "that was interesting," got my coffee, jumped back in my car, and continued the long boring drive down I-16 to Savannah.  

Later I am in Savannah touring downtown on the night before the race.  Again, I do not have my Rock-and-Roll marathon swag bag (I put it in my trunk) and I'm dressed in the same Copper Mountain fleece and jeans as I did when I was asked about the race at McDonald's earlier.  This time, a couple that was taking a weekend getaway into the city stopped and asked me if I could take their picture and mentioned pretty obviously that they knew I was running the race.  ummmmmm...

I didn't mention that I was running the half to them.  And believe me, there were plenty of people milling around downtown Savannah that were not going to run 13 feet much less 13 miles... so how did they know (I thought in my head)?  I also had traded my running shoes for my comfortable Clarks (which nobody would even run in).  Perhaps no one would be touring downtown alone last Friday had they not been runners... but I will explore on my own and not be asked about my hobbies.  So I took their picture next to the this Bellagio-style water spout area (really cool place, by the way), and then they wished me good luck on the race and went their way.  

And I was wished luck a few more times... I never really brought it up.  People just seemed to look at me and think "Oh, he's running in that race tomorrow"  And I wasn't waving any flair or jabbing about it.  I was just doing my thing. 

And then I thought this afternoon:

"Do people, in the same way, just eyeball me and assume that I follow Jesus?"  

Maybe they do and I just don't know about it... like they look at me and think "Oh yeah, that guy follows Jesus" and don't talk to me like it was en-vogue to do up to and around Savannah last Friday.  In the same way that someone could look at me at a fast-food joint on the last real exit between Macon & Savannah, put two and two together and ask a pointed question such as "are you running the whole or the half?"... Could a person look at me on a Sunday outside of church and confidently ask me "so, what has God been showing you in your life lately?" and assume that I would come back with an intelligent response?

It was convicting.  And it honestly has me (at least in my spirit) on my knees because I know that as a redeemed person that I can't be the same person I was before... yet I go back to acting like it too often.  I really want to be the kind of person who can interact with someone and that person gets a sense that somehow the person they're talking to is connected to God and is curious as to how.  And just like my running epiphany, not because I have flair or a sticker on my car but because the glow and substance of who I am just screams it out.  

Does it convict you?  What would it look like if next Sunday after church you walked into your lunch restaurant with your circle of friends and the waitress asked you how you connected to God in your worship that morning?  Without knowing where you went to church... or that you have... just by knowing it was Sunday and eyeballing you they could just... tell.  

Would they be able to?