Yesterday I was talking to a man that I knew was going to have a tough time, “letting me on to his ranch” emotionally so to speak. I did my customary ice-breaker questions with him and when the timing seemed right I asked if he had any doubts,fears, or unanswered questions that were of a spiritual nature.
Doubts? None. Fears? None. Curiosity? Yes!! ”When does God have time to take care of Himself?” Some folks might brush that off as a childish theologically underdeveloped misunderstanding of who God is. However, when a person is facing their own death in a matter of weeks or less and they can ask you a question like this, it is indeed an indicator that God and eternity are on their mind!
For me, it was also a door opener to build a rapport with this man. I saw wrapped up in his question, a genuine sincere appreciation for the wonder and complexity of God’s creation: his acknowledgement of an Intelligent Designer, a Divine Creator, a power much greater than himself.
Don’t miss this: while all other indicators observed might point to a life of irreverence, his question was flowing from his reverence for God. I acknowledged it as such and from that point on you could see the wall coming down and a bridge of trust beginning to be developed.
It wasn’t long before he was sharing he grew up in a mainline protestant denomination and how church had become irrelevant and a turnoff to him over the years. I don’t try to preach in these situations, I mostly listen. Eventually he went on to mention the word Jesus in a respectful manner!
Listening in an attentively without coming across like you are going to correct or admonish everything that is said goes a long way in building a relationship wherein you can share God’s truth . . . eventually.
At the end of the visit I asked for permission to pray for this man. He surprisingly let me. Do you have any idea how much information you can share in a prayer? It is there you can remind them of God’s forgiveness of sins, his sacrificial love through Christ, the concept of unconditional grace, and their potential to be a child of God without earning it rather just by asking. There were tears in the room when we we’re done.
We have to look for the Mars Hill moments in life! (Mars Hill is the location of the Areopagus where Paul preached in Athens in Acts chapter 17) These moments are found when someone else creates a touch point with the living God giving you an opportunity to continue on in a conversation about the truth of who God is in a relevant respectful manner. That to me is God’s invitation to join Him in the work that is already being done in this person’s spirit.
Acts 17:23:b –26 “Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth ” 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]
