There was a research scientist who had a horseshoe nailed over the door to his laboratory. He was asked about it —
“Horseshoes are supposed to bring good luck. You don’t believe in such things, do you”
“No, I don’t. They work better if you don’t believe in them.”
Clever huh? But that’s the same kind of thinking that many people have about spiritual beings and their domain. Many will say they don’t believe in ghosts, spirits or anything like that. Yet when they are alone in strange, dark place any odd sound may cause them to jump. They may never admit that they thought the “bump-in-the-night” was caused by a demon or any other spiritual entity yet that may have been exactly their physical reaction in the very first instant. It is striking to think that no matter how many layers of existential culture are applied, a more visceral sense of the universe still remains.
Of course such an understanding would be quickly denied by non-believers or labeled mythical or childish. Yet such invisible beings are the very ones every serious Christian is meant to embrace. God, himself is an invisible spirit being (John 4:24), as is Christ, angels and demons as well as disembodied human souls. Do Christians deny them? I would hope not, because to do so is to deny the Biblical report and the Creator Himself.
Getting a non-believer to recognize and admit to the existence of the spiritual domain is a major – often neglected – ‘speed-bump’ in any evangelistic effort. Getting past that bump-in-the-road then is the first order of business – an order of business that must be resolved before any meaningful discussion about salvation.
For a human evangelist, overcoming that kind of resistance may be nearly impossible. We’ve all heard the saying, “There are no atheists in a foxhole”. The implication of that is that when one feels spiritually threatened, a real change-of-heart may come about. Which means the change-of-heart happened at the spiritual level – which, in turn, says that the Creator Himself caused the change-of-heart not any evangelist.
So, if evangelists can’t actually produce the necessary change-of-heart, what are they doing? Hopefully they are doing just what they’ve been told to do: Making sure that people know what the gospel message is. And in the course of that, a bit of curiosity may be produced. A bit of knowledge and a bit of curiosity is all the Holy Spirit wants. He can do the heart-changing and work the necessary miracles with no more than that.
So — are you an evangelist? Yes you are – all believers are. Your basic function (the basic function of any believer) then is to generate whatever tiny bit of curiosity you can among the unbelievers around you.
I suppose an unbeliever could trip over God in a dark hallway, but that’s leaving a lot to chance. If unbelievers are curious they will look for God on their own. When they look for Him, they will find Him.
What suggestions do you have to promote the kind of curiosity people would need in order to begin looking for God?
Each of us is a unique spiritual being residing in a physical body. That physical body is born individually, it dies individually and the spirit it contains stands before God every moment as an individual being. No matter how large a group we find ourselves in, our relationship with God is one on one. Therefore our worship and each of our styles of worship must be accordingly unique. That concept is developed and expanded in the book “Worshiping Alone” available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. If you haven’t read it, please consider doing so.
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God Everyday 