“Kevin, I’ve been reading the Bible. I started in Genesis. I just got to Hebrews. I’ve got some questions for you.”
This statement came from Will, a friend of mine who was a bartender, who didn’t particularly like people all that much, and was far from God. For some reason he liked me and our conversations over the years had been meaningful. We discussed everything, sometimes even God, but he never told me he had ever opened the Bible.
“Wow. you never told me you were reading the Bible. What started you and what questions do you have?”
“Our conversations started me, and I want to know why you and I can’t start a religion where everyone is good to each other and we just do away with all this “God” stuff.”
This question began a sincere discussion, that continues to this day about “good” without “God”, how God would feel “being done away with”, and why Will even asked the question. One important point sticks with me. I never thought I was getting anywhere in my conversations with Will. Then, bam, He’s been reading the Bible from Genesis to Hebrews and he had questions for the only guy he would ever talk to about God.
Keep these relationships. Don’t give up on them. Don’t insulant yourself from the people that God loves so much. The shepherd leaves the 99 to go get the 1. Let’s be like Him.
Keep “stumbling”!
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definitely. i just had a similar experience at Such As I Have (homeless ministry) last Sunday night.
My friend Anthony is on the streets, and is usually the least receptive to Jesus out of the men that we minister to on his corner. Before we went down on the 23rd, he was just really on my heart and I was praying that God would soften his. When we got downtown, I was talking to someone else, but I looked over and Anthony was laying down with his headphones on (the usual). I felt, very strongly, that God wanted me to go talk to him. It was really awkward at first, because I had to yell his name to get his attention through the music in his ears. Finally he sees me, and I sit down with him. Before I have a chance to say anything, he starts the conversation with a simple, yet shocking, question: “What’d you learn today? Ya know, in church?”
Wow. Anthony had never been the first to bring up God. I began to explain the message of threshing and trials that Mark had given that morning, and he continually asked questions throughout the explaination. After, he pulled out a tiny booklet, which he called his Bible. It was a few verses inside a little book that a man passing by had handed him (it looked pretty rough, so he had apparently had it for a while). It was written in the King James Translation, and Anthony said that a lot of it was confusing. So he opened the booklet and began to read random verses, asking me to explain them and their importance. So there I was, having a mini Bible study with Anthony.
I had stumbled into an adventure, similiar to your experience with Will.
Jesus is so faithful!!!
