Today was a bit different. There was no stranger. No prayer. Just talking, trying to answer questions, and learning. As God prepared me for this assignment, He guided me in putting my Bible on my desk at work. Just put it there in plain sight. So it’s been there for several weeks now, and it was opened to 2 Timothy. A friend of mine in the office asked, “What’s the word from Timothy today?” So I told him what I’d read and asked if he knew about it. “I’m not real religious,” he replied.
That stuck in my head for several hours. Had I missed an opportunity, a place where God was at work? So later that day, I asked him what he meant when he said he wasn’t religious. Does that mean he doesn’t like church? Or does he not believe in God?
“I think we’re all just part of the animal kingdom, just like everything else,” he said. That surprised me. This was a good man, someone with a quick heart to serve. And he didn’t believe. But he wasn’t offensive. He wasn’t pushy. He was just a relativist. He said everyone is entitled to his own views. The conversation ranged pretty broadly from there: He asked about whether it was important to go to church, why Christianity would be better than any other religion, and how one could believe in God. I answered him where I could.
I told him he must think I’m nuts, believing the way that I do. Oh no, he said – Definitely not; everyone can believe something different. But, I countered, you don’t believe it, so you must think I’m wrong. No, he said, I just don’t know what to believe.
So there was that bit of hope. Maybe there was an opening there. I told him that he eventually needed to make a decision. Either he believed or he didn’t. And it would be best to do that while there was time. And I told him I would pray for him.
It was a friendly conversation – even as we tried to pull each other in different directions. It gave me plenty to think about, primarily about how I should respond to tough questions. But at the same time, I feel like the Holy Spirit was at work – in having that Bible open on my desk, in giving me the courage to strike up a serious conversation and giving me the words to use to show that I care.
And it reaffirmed my theory that the people closest to us oftentimes are the hardest to reach.
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