Two Stories Converge

I was at Java Old City. A little coffee shop tucked into the older part of Knoxville. The Old City, Knoxville use to be where it was at when I first came to town five years ago. However, I have watched it decline into a shoddy club haven over time, but I'm still holding onto it. I love it still, and I'll visit Java every once in a while to write a spell.
After I had been working on various things at my table for forty-five minutes or so, two guys around my age walked in. They entered the room carrying tobacco to roll their own cigs and chess pieces. I heard them talking about the Old Testament and some debate between ministers they had attended. Immediately, I assumed they were Christians.
They played for a while, and I typed. They discussed different issues. Finally, one of them got up to get a refill, and the other was ten seconds behind. For no apparent reason, I asked "Are you guys Christians?" as the second guy passed by. He looked at me and then at the wall. He lightly jingled his mug in his hand, and stammered, "I...have been searching...and I like Jesus' answers the most. I just don't believe in the Church." We were then off to the races.
He sat back down, and he began to compare Jesus with Buddha and drew similarities between the two. He said that He respects Jesus the man, but wouldn't call himself a Christian. To call ones' self a Christian one would have to acknowledge the "Godship" of Christ. He said, "Yes, Jesus was God, but just as all of us our God. We all have that godship in us, but He was so enlightened that He attained to it more than the rest of us." We talked about the Old Testament God versus the New Testament God and postmodernism's vacuum of absolutes. It went on and on: the Christian who claimed Jesus to be God debating the Jesus lovers who wanted a good teacher. It was really a great conversation. I liked them a lot, and they liked me. They said they were grateful to talk with someone who didn't get offended. We openly disagreed with each other, but it was done in love. It was just such a heady conversation. SO very heady.
But it was the last five minutes that I'll remember the most. As it was wrapping up, the guy I had originally talked to said, "Well, I have a question that I like to ask Christians. How can there be so much pain in the world, if God is truly all knowing and all powerful? I don’t see how evil and God’s sovereignty can coexist.” He continued, “My best friend was murdered by his babysitter when I was 11. I don't get it." At another point in the conversation he said, "My grandfather died, and I started drinking too much. I started my journey then. I have a hard time thinking God is just."

And there…there it is.

That is where the theology finds its basis. That is the origin of the journey. That is where the wrestling match started between Christ (The God) and this human soul. It is here where all the heady answers come from.

I've only really done TRUE evangelism about twice in my life where I told the gospel message for what it truly is. They both ended in very loving debates about God. This was one of them, and in both of them the conversation swirled around and around like water down a drain until it was summed up in...pain.
It is the world's pain that leads it to wrestle with God and to either accept or reject Him. It was our pain, my Christian brothers and sisters, that led us to Christ. It’s their pain that turns them away.
When we evangelize and debate with the sinner, let us be very sure to lovingly strip it down to their pain. Yes, meet their arguments with your Christian viewpoint, but look for that ever so small window where the truth is shining through--the truth that the world is made up of individuals with individual stories of defeat, loss, despair, and it is that world Jesus is trying to break through to. That is the world He is trying to communicate with. Not the world of academia.

When I answered his question with my own stories of pain and loss, and talked about God's love in our pain, I saw the faintest of glimmerings in his eyes. It was amidst a conversation of concepts that Christ’s love faintly touched the broken heart of a sinner. It happened, however, as the concepts faded away and a personal story emerged.