Dinner at Beth's

So last night we didn't get home until about 10 pm from the lake and dinner at Beth's. We actually didn't even eat until 8:30 or so and then Beth, Mom and I got into a conversation about the book I'm reading (Prague Counterpoint, the second book in the Zion Covenant Series) and one I just read that Tyler let me borrow. Then somehow we got to talking about killing spiders. I'm not sure how that came up, but Beth doesn't kill spiders because she believes they have a soul. Ok, I must say right now that Mom has told me that Beth has NO interest in God at all. She's talked about how she's not sure if she thinks God even exists at all. Last night she was filled with questions though.

It started out with books and spiders but we ended up talking a lot about Christianity. She was telling me that I should question my religion instead of just believing what people tell me, which was where I started talking about the Bible being ultimate truth. Wow... There is so much I don't even know if I can write all about it. I was able to compare how the Christian Bible tells us that we can be saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ while other religions are focused on good deeds. I talked about how the "gods" of other religions don't care about people, then I was able to quote some verses from Psalm 139 about how God cares for us and has ordained the days of our lives before we even existed! After our long, jumping conversation, I said that no matter what I believe or what you believe, it all comes down to faith. No one was there when the universe was created, so no one can say they have "proof" for one thing. You can believe in evolution and I can believe in the Bible, but at some point it comes down to believing with faith in whatever "system" you choose. I said that for Christians, it is clear that the Bible is God's Word. It is Truth and nothing else is. God sent Christ to come to earth and live the perfect life that man couldn't live (oh yeah, I talked about how we are all imperfect and not capable of having our "good" outweigh our "bad" in heaven). Christ went through the temptations of sin, yet was without sin. He died on the cross and was raised again, conquerring death and sin so that we could have eternal life. I quoted John 14:6 that Jesus is the ONLY way to the Father and explained how our sin cannot stand before a Holy and Perfect God. Then I said that if a person believes all that, God gives them the gift of the Holy Spirit to help guide them to follow His will, which is written in the Bible. Yeah, there was so much more.

I hope and pray that the Lord's Word penetrated her hardened heart and that the things she remembers are from Him and not from me. That's two opportunities I've had this summer to talk to people I hardly know about Christ and it's challenged me SO MUCH!!! Praise the Lord for giving us the opportunity to plant seeds! Thinking about it now gets me excited about the Savior all over again :-D He is SO GOOD!!!!

And on that note... I'm going to go read. I just watched the movie Tyler recommended to me called au hasard Balthazar and really didn't like it. It was incredibly slow. I'm trying to decided how to nicely tell Tyler that I thought it was kind of dumb. Maybe I'm just not into that whole "art in film" thing. Maybe it was so profound that it was beyond me. I dunno. I just felt like I wasted an hour and a half and was struggling to stay awake. Right, reading time. God bless! And praise the Lord that He is the One who saves!!!!!