One night, I hung out with my closest national friend, *Natalie. We went to dinner then out for coffee. While we were eating, the topic of religion came up. She said “I am not a Christian. But, I am not a Muslim.” So I asked, “but do you believe there is a God?”, trying to re-evaluate where she is spiritually. Natalie said, “yes i do believe there is a God.”
I asked her, “what are you then? If you are not a Christian or a Muslim?” She replied, “I guess I am a deist. I believe there is a God, but I do not practice any religion.” So I asked her, “well if you had to pick a religion, which would you pick? Christianity, Islam, Buddhism?” She quickly responded, “Christianity”. I said “oh, why Christianity? What do you like about it?” She said that she likes going to Catholic churches because she feels safe there. She feels peaceful. She said, as she has told me many times before, that she does not like mosques and the way she feels there.
I asked, “so, what about the belief Christians have that Jesus is God’s son? Do you believe that?” She said, “yes I do believe that. Even the Koran says that God told Mary to conceive, they just don’t believe that made Him God’s son. But it doesn’t make sense to me how he could not be God’s son if God told her to conceive Him”. So I said, “well you believe some things that Christians believe, so what do you not like about Christianity? Or what do Christians do that you don’t think you could do?” She said that they read the Bible every day and pray every day and she just prays when she feels like it.
I told her about a time a few months ago when I had very little desire to read His Word and pray and how I started reading through Psalms and that it really helped because of how raw and honest some of David’s prayers are. I said that I looked for and charted all of God’s characteristics I found in the Psalms so that next time I am not desiring Him, I can be reminded of who He is. She seemed to understand what I was saying.
Then, I asked if she believes that Jesus died and rose from the dead because that is a hard concept for some people to believe. She said, “yes, I believe that too. I did not explain how you become a Christian or what it really means to have a relationship with Him. I did not ask her if she believes that Jesus is the Savior. But I know I will be able to re-explain that to her some other time. I left her with all of that to chew on until next time.
The whole conversation was something I had wanted to talk to her about again since I have never quite been sure of what she believes. And it flowed so naturally. She seemed pretty comfortable talking about it. So, I am praying I will be able to clearly explain the gospel to her very soon.