God nudged me to talk to a stranger at the gym. It changed his life

By Bruce Farley, Op-ed contributor Saturday, October 31, 2026

I met Briar at the gym. His sleeve tattoo caught my eye, but what stopped me was the sadness in his eyes and the sense that the Holy Spirit wanted me to reach out to him.

I’ve learned to call that sense a “nudge,” the Holy Spirit’s prompt to risk connecting with someone He deeply loves. Most of us feel it, and most of us talk ourselves out of it before we’ve taken a single step. We’re busy and it’s awkward. We tell ourselves someone else is better suited.

I’ve learned that we miss so much of God’s work in the world when we don’t take the risks — so I did. I asked him about the sleeve tattoo, and although he was guarded, the stories that tattoo told were ones of pain. That led to talk about work, and when I mentioned I was in ministry, Briar said, “I need to go to church.”

He came the next Sunday with no church background and was deeply moved. When I asked why, he said, “I have a lot of regrets.” We scheduled lunch, and he cancelled. Over the next year came sporadic texts and calls, and slowly the picture emerged of parents who struggled with alcohol and a painful home life.

Then, on a Friday night, he called. He sounded wrecked. “We need to get together.”

When we met a few days later, another nudge came, what Scripture calls a word of knowledge. I asked him, “Your girlfriend had an abortion, didn’t she?” He stared at me. “How did you know? That’s my greatest regret. We were forced into it, and it ruined everything.”

I told him that God, who deeply loved him, didn’t want him to hide anymore. “What is this whole Jesus thing?” he asked. I handed him a prayer of surrender from an Alpha booklet and asked him to read it aloud, planning to unpack the Gospel afterward. Halfway through, tears were streaming down his face. “What is happening to me?” he asked.

“I’m not really sure,” I said honestly.

I had planned to explain the Gospel. God had other plans, and He began His gift of new life in Briar right there.

Three weeks later, Briar told me what had happened the night he called. He had tried to end his life. When I asked what he would have done if he’d had no one to call, he said, “I don’t know. Maybe try again.”

Briar later lived with my wife and I and went through Alpha at our church, where he met his wife. The sobering truth that haunts me to this day is what if I hadn’t taken the risk that every Holy Spirit “nudge” calls us to take.

Here is my argument: We are in a season where the Western church is hunting for the next strategy, a better podcast, a slicker outreach, a smarter engagement plan. I’m not against solid resources, but I’ve come to believe that much of our struggle isn’t a lack of programming. It’s a lack of obedience at the smallest, most personal level. We don’t need more events. We need more ordinary Christians willing to be interrupted.

Consider what we say we believe: that the God of the universe invites us into partnership with Him. If that’s true, then the prompt to speak to the stranger at the gym is the Great Commission arriving in the form of a Wednesday morning conversation. When we ignore it, we haven’t been neutral. We’ve declined a call.

Three things I’d press on every believer:

First, partnership is the point. God doesn’t need us, yet He chooses to work through us. To see lives changed now and for eternity as a result of your small “yes” is among the great privileges of the Christian life.

Second, discernment grows through risk. No one gets better at recognizing God’s promptings by thinking about it. We learn by acting, sometimes getting it wrong, and acting again. Call it faith, because without risk it doesn’t exist. A church full of people afraid of looking foolish will never grow in this.

Third, act on what you sense. Most nudges won’t be dramatic. Mine rarely are. But you never know which one is. Briar’s friendship over the years has taught me that the only wise response to a nudge is to obey it.

Granted, not every impression is from God, and we should test them against Scripture and wise counsel. Discernment is a discipline, not an excuse for caution. But I fear that in our zeal to avoid error, we’ve made inaction our default.

Somewhere today, someone is sitting near you carrying a regret they can’t say out loud, or worse. The nudge may feel small, and it may be the most important thing you do this week.

Stop. See. Ask. Obey. You never know what God might do.