TJ ~ 21 years old; Darcy – 55 years old

My friend & church planting coach, Steve Laug & I, made it out a bit later in the day than we anticipated, but we still had a little over an hour to go out sharing the gospel, so we headed down to a favourite fishing spot:  Kinsington.   We met 2 folks, one we talked to for about 60 seconds and the other for about 60 minutes. 

TJ ~ 21 years old

TJ was a sharply dressed young man hanging out on a bench finishing a sandwich, and he said he was willing to answer some questions about his spiritual beliefs and background.  He said he had no spiritual background, and he didn’t have any thoughts on religion or spirituality.  There were no questions that he would ask God (though he thought about it for a moment and admitted that was a hard question).   He said that he’d really have no answer if God were to ask him “Why should I let you into Heaven?” insisting, “I’m only human.”  He rated himself an 8 on the good-o-meter scale saying, “No one is perfect.”  It seemed that TJ was simply humouring us at this point and not really engaged, so we left him a Gospel booklet saying that this might give him some food for thought, thanked him for his time, and headed on to see if we could re-cast elsewhere.

Darcy – 55 years old

A few minutes later we found Darcy enjoying the sunshine, a cigarette, and a book.  He looked like he was a few pages from the end of the book, so we interrupted politely.

“Excuse me.  I hate to interrupt you,” I said.  “You look like you have a good book going there!  We out in the community today with a questionnaire asking people to answer a few questions about their spiritual backgrounds and beliefs.  Would you have a moment?”

“Sure,” said Darcy, and he closed his book.   We introduced ourselves and Steve asked him what he was reading.  “Herman Melville’s Short Stories.” 

“Oh,” said Steve, “I just finished reading Moby Dick again. I really like Melville.”  There was an instant connection between Darcy & Steve. 

Darcy was raised Anglican, but is no longer practicing. He describes his current spiritual beliefs as a combination of existentialism, zen, & liberalism. If Darcy could ask God a question, it would be “Why?” I asked for clarification and he said, “Just ‘why?’ Why is there anything? Of course, if God exists, then that would answer that question.  But ‘why?’  What is the meaning of life?” 

When asked what he would say if God asked him about letting him into heaven, Darcy said very diplomatically, “I’ve lived a life that conforms to most religious teachings.”  He would rate himself an “8” on a scale of 1-10 re: his goodness. “I don’t want to sound arrogant.”  

I thanked him for his response to our questionnaire and asked him if I could ask him a question about his Anglican background. He said, “Sure. Go for it.”  

“Why are you no longer a practicing Anglican?  Was it a conscious decision or did you just sort of drift away.”

“It was more of a conscious decision.  When I left home, I started wrestling with the problem of evil.  It seems just like there is so much needless evil, and I don’t get how to reconcile that with a good God.” 

I told him that is a common struggle for people, even for those who consider themselves believers. I wrestle with that myself and told him that for me, understanding the crucifixion of Jesus helps:  the Bible contributes the event to both the evil will of people and to the plan of God. If God can bring good out of the crucifixion, then I can trust that he has a reason for allowing other things that I don’t understand the reasons for. 

Steve asked him if he had an issue that he had suffered with personally or if it were more just theoretical.  For Steve it has a personal edge because he has suffered through cancer. Darcy said that he has had a pretty normal life.

Steve followed that up with a question about his Buddhist beliefs: “Do they bring you comfort? At the end of the day, what do these beliefs do for you?” Surprisingly, Darcy admitted that it doesn’t bring him much comfort, and he knows that when he dies that it won’t bring him any comfort but he hopes that he doesn’t have to deal with that for some 30 years.  

Steve gentled challenged him on a few points of Buddhist beliefs, and Darcy surprisingly stated that he does have issues with them.  For example, he doesn’t believe in Nirvana, nor does he know really how they serve to guide him in life.  If he witnesses a child being abused, does he help out or is he supposed to feel nothing?  

I took the opportunity to ask him a bit more about his background with Anglicanism.  “Darcy, let me ask you a question. You obviously have some background with Christianity. What do you think of Jesus? Who do you think he is?”

“Well, I think he was a great religious philosopher. I mean, you just have to look at some of his teachings to see that.” 

“I agree, Darcy, but what do you think about his teaching in which he said things like, ‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life’? Or ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.’ Jesus seemed to say some pretty strong things that set him apart from other religious teachers.

Darcy thought about this for a moment.  “Well, I think we are all sons of God, and Jesus was talking about accessing God through his teachings.”

“Do you believe everyone is a son of God?  What about Hitler, or folks who commit acts of evil that leave you questioning God’s existence?   Surely not everyone is a son of God.”  

Darcy speculated that Hitler must have been mentally imbalanced to do the things he did, but that can’t be said of everyone who does evil.   Some clearly choose it. 

Steve jumped in, “Have you heard of CS Lewis?”

“Yeah, he wrote the Chronicles of Narnia.” 

“That’s right,” Steve said. “He also wrote a book called Mere Christianity in which he said that Jesus was a great moral teacher, but you can’t just leave it like that.  To say the things that Jesus said gives you only a couple of options:  either he is a madman on the level of someone who says he’s a poached egg (Darcy laughed nodding his head), or his claims about himself have to be true.” 

“Hmmm…that’s interesting the way you put it.”

“Let me see if I can clarify an important distinction about Christianity,” Steve continued.  “Jesus says that our life is not about improving ourselves morally. Life is not a journey in which we arrive at the end. It’s more like we need to be honest with ourselves. I can’t fool myself about all the mistakes I’ve made, how can I think I’m fooling God? In fact, when Jesus preached his famous sermon called the Sermon on the Mount, he out-Mosesed-Moses. In other words, he took the 10 Commandments and said, ‘Let me show you what they really mean. You think you’re good because you haven’t committed adultery, but when you look at someone with lust you’ve already committed adultery in your heart. When your angry with someone, you are murdering them in your heart.’ Jesus raises the bar so high that it strips us of any sense of being able to make ourselves better.”  

Darcy was nodding his head saying, “I’ve never really thought of it that way before. That’s interesting.”

Steve continued, “So it’s not about saying, ‘Look at me God.  Aren’t you glad I’m on your team?’  It’s more like just throwing yourself upon his mercy because you know you don’t deserve it.” 

“Interesting,” Darcy replied.  “I’ve never looked at it that way before.”  

“And where Jesus comes in is that I need someone to stand in front of me and take the justice my junk deserves so that I’m left with mercy.”  

I jumped in, “That’s why one of Jesus’ apostles, Peter, said, ‘The righteous (Jesus) died for the unrighteous (people like us) so that he might bring us to God.’  We can’t work our way to God, we need a Saviour who can bring us to God.”

A lot more could be said about the conversation (it lasted an hour or a bit more), but this was the gist of it. Darcy was a very warm individual who gave us much more of his time than we anticipated. He thanked us for stopping to talk with him, and he especially thanked us for giving him some things to think about and for the way we gently challenged some of his beliefs. We gave him a booklet on Christianity explaining that we thought he’d be especially interested in reading it.   He thanked us for it, and we chatted a bit more before heading off.  

Steve and I really enjoyed this conversation because we were able to engage Darcy in a way that was natural.  We believe there are many people like Darcy who want to talk about spiritual topics, but there’s not really space in our culture to do that.

Darcy, for his part, wasn’t defensive at all and was really candid about the nagging questions he had about his own beliefs.  Steve and I left encouraged and thankful for the open door to speak about the Gospel of Christ, and wondered optimistically what God would do with this conversation in his life.  We prayed that the seed of the Gospel will grown in his life leading him to come to a true knowledge and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.   

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Luke 19:10, "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost." 

"Lord Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, would you seek out and save TJ who seems to have suppressed the knowledge of you so deeply that he doesn't have much to say. Amen."

Acts 10:38-44, "...God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name."

"Almighty God, would you be pleased to reveal Your Son to Darcy.  He has had some exposure to religious teachings and genuinely seems to want to think about these things.  Be pleased to drive home to him what Your holy prophets said, 'Everyone who believes in him receives the forgiveness of sins through his name.' Amen."