It got hard

‘I don’t believe in God.’

What do you say to someone that says that? How do you react? How do you respond? When I heard those words from someone I love my mind and my heart kind of froze. Before I could get them working again this same person said ‘I just want to be happy and be a good person.’

And still I didn’t know how to respond. What is the right response to that? On the one hand I’m glad this person wants to ‘be a good person’, on the other I wonder what that means. In my heart I want to tell this person just what they’re risking by denying God, denying Christ but in my head I know that it would do little, if any, good. I remind myself that replying that way might very well push them further away.

I remember how when I first started understanding exactly what it was that I saw in Scripture my husband told me ‘now it will get hard’. I’m not sure it gets any harder than to hear someone that holds your heart in their hands tell you that they don’t believe in God.

Last night my husband and I watched a video of a Christian man explain an encounter he recently had with three other people. These people didn’t believe in Christ. One of the things this Christian man said was something to the effect of… if the stories are true that Jesus conquered death, that he rose from the dead and escaped the tomb, then why would you chose not to believe?

What is there in a person, in their life, that would make them completely deny Christ? Scripture tells us that everyone believes in God they just suppress that belief. And so as I spoke with this family member I was reminded of the verses where I’m told that everyone believes. I was also reminded of the verses where it warns against hardening your heart.

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
⁸ do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
    on the day of testing in the wilderness,
⁹ where your fathers put me to the test
    and saw my works for forty years.
¹⁰ Therefore I was provoked with that generation,
and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart;
    they have not known my ways.’
¹¹ As I swore in my wrath,
    ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”

¹² Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. ¹³ But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. ¹⁴ For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. ¹⁵ As it is said,

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”

¹⁶ For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? ¹⁷ And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? ¹⁹ So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. Hebrews 3:7-19

I know that this was addressed to the believer but it speaks of the unbeliever and so as I listened to this person tell me that they don’t believe in God I remembered the verses above. I thought of the hardening of heart that took place in this person’s life. I remember watching this person change from someone that confessed a fairly strong belief, even gave things up for what they believed, to someone that was telling me they no longer believed in God.

And it got hard.

My heart wanted to warn them of the torture waiting for them in hell if they continued in unbelief, my mind reminded me that that would do no good.

My heart wanted to beg them to open their heart again to believe in Christ, my mind reminded me that would do no good.

And it was hard.

It’s still hard.

I think back to that video we watched, think of the man doing his best to dispute the ideas the other people in the show held and having to do it long after the show he was on had finished being filmed because the other people on the show hadn’t given him the chance to voice his beliefs.

As I sat talking to this person that I loved, as I heard them say they don’t believe in God, I felt much the way this man must have felt only I wasn’t being prevented from voicing my beliefs by my loved one as those people prevented that man from voicing his. I was prevented from voicing my beliefs by my own mind that told me to voice those beliefs at that time would do no good and could even do more harm.

I was reminded of the children that were forced to write Bible verses as punishment and how they came to resent Scripture as a result. I didn’t want to create any more resentment in the heart and mind of my loved one.

So I walked through that conversation as a person might walk on very fragile, very thin glass. I knew one wrong step, one wrong word, would shatter the glass.

And it was hard.

I had to balance my own beliefs against the mindset of the person I was talking to. I had to tread with caution hoping to plant seeds that would one day sprout.

Unlike the man in the video that wanted only to express his beliefs…the man that did eventually express his beliefs by showing clips of the show he had been on in his own show as he discussed and debated each clip while voicing his beliefs…I wanted to plant seeds in the hopes that they would one day take root and sprout. To do so I had to carefully sift the soil and cautiously lay down the seeds I wanted to grow.

 And as I write this post I find myself struggling with my own thoughts and ideas. I find myself struggling with how to word what I want to say, struggling with the hard part of what I went through while hearing my loved one tell me they don’t believe in God, struggling with my own pain.

Because it got hard.

The video I watched with my husband has no bearing on the conversation I had with my loved one but that conversation came not long after we watched that video. And as I had that conversation I was reminded of the beliefs…or lack of…held by the three other people in that video. Particularly I found myself thinking of the beliefs…or lack of…held by two young women on the video.

In the clips used on the program we watched there were a couple of women that kept voicing their beliefs, beliefs that basically boiled down to let everyone live for their own happiness and just love everyone. It was after watching that program that I had the conversation with my family and discovered this loved one pretty much believes the way those women did. The only real difference that I could see was that those women had held their beliefs long enough to know what they believed and my family member was just beginning to believe that way and so was confused about exactly what they believed.

When I first began to understand what it was that I was seeing in Scripture my husband told me ‘now it will get hard’. I didn’t understand then. I do now.

When a professing ‘Christian’ finds out that someone doesn’t believe in Christ the answer is simple…convince them to choose to believe. That’s it. All they have to do is work their way around the heard headedness of the person they’re talking to and get that person to say they believe. They need only to convince them to say a five minute prayer. Once the prayer is said the person is saved and they can quit worrying about their soul.

It’s not like that.

And because it’s not like that…it gets hard. I can’t be mad at this family member because of their unbelief because the Lord has decided who he will save and who he won’t. If I get angry with someone for not believing then I’m basically punishing them for something they had no control over. Not that I came anywhere close to being angry. I was hurt. Hurt for them, scared for them, worried about them, but not even close to angry.

You see, I understand what that person didn’t. I understand that in their unbelief  they are risking their eternity, they are literally playing with fire. And yet…I know that only the Lord can save them. They have a part to play. I have a part to play. But only the Lord can save them. The decision has already been made. The Lord will either save this person or they won’t.

I have questioned myself many times about whether or not I should explain the truths of Scripture to family members that profess to be ‘Christians’. I’ve wondered if I should tell them what I know that they do not know. And I haven’t found the answer yet. In some ways I think it’s best to leave them with their beliefs. I think that it preserves family relationships and lets them happily hang onto what belief they do have. But then I wonder… I know I had never heard of the truths that were revealed to me before I was seeing them in Scripture. In all my days and years of going to ‘church’ I never heard them. And so I wonder if I might not be the only person in my family member’s lives to show them those truths. And if I am…is it my place to say something?

That is where my beliefs get hard. Hearing someone I love tell me that they don’t believe in God and that they just want to be happy and be a good person…got hard. If I had held the beliefs of most professing ‘Christians’ I would have tried to convince my loved one to just ‘chose Christ’ but because I don’t hold those beliefs there was nothing I could say. All I could do was try to understand where they were coming from. And reassure them that I held no anger toward them because they didn't believe.

And I knew, even as I reassured them, that I would pray hard for them. I knew I would beg the Lord to do something in their lives that they would never choose if given the choice. I knew that I would spend countless hours in prayer for this person because I knew what they did not.

I knew what they are missing out on. I know what their unbelief will cost them.

And because I know I will beg the Lord for this person’s soul.

And still…the pain was near devastating. As I thought of what this person may wind up suffering I emotionally staggered.

 I hurt.

 I ached.

 I bled invisible blood. Because I know the consequences to come if the Lord leaves this person to their unbelief.

And it was hard.

It hurt.

I wanted to do something but was powerless to change anything in that moment. I wanted to tell them how wrong they are, to beg with them, to plead, to convince them to change their minds but I knew it wasn’t their minds that needed changed it was their heart.

 I am reminded of the security my grandmother used to find in knowing that her children and grandchildren had said ‘the prayer’. And I’m reminded of how much easier it would be to believe that way. If I believed that way I would still have the security of knowing that this person will go to heaven because they once said ‘the prayer’. But I know that prayer did not secure this person’s salvation any more than saying I want to own that car makes it yours.

But as that person told me of their unbelief I almost wished I could believe that way because it would have taken away a good part of the pain I felt at hearing ‘I don’t believe in God.’

And for me…

It got hard.