It's amazing how God works on people's hearts. I participate on a Christian chat server and there are users frequenting the server from the world over. You never know what type of person you might meet. My fellow chatters and I often meet users who sign on seeking to learn more about Jesus. Some of them know that they are seeking Him and some of them have no clue that they are being moved upon by the Holy Spirit.

Last night we had one such user. He signed on and threw out a sort of lame challenge by asking if anybody wanted to talk about evolution. I suggested he join me in the room formatted for debate and he did. It soon became apparent that he wasn't really interested in a debate about evolution at all and that what he really wanted, in his mind, was to vent. Although he seemed to be kind of down, he demonstrated a good sense of humor and a desire to be respectful. He wanted to know what I 'believed.'

I 'chatted' with him for over and hour and a half. I told him what I believed. In the early part of the conversation, he stated and reiterated several times that the word 'Christian' was a made up word. I took him through the history of the word and its coinage in Antioch. I told him how it is believed to have first been used as a pejorative expression by unbelievers who wanted to downgrade followers of Jesus. He seemed surprised. It turned out, as I suspected that he was taking his cues from the popular novel, 'The Da Vinci Code'.

He told me that he had no use for the Bible because it was all made up. I asked him how he knew that. He told me that a number of people had told him so. I told him that the Bible was most likely the best selling book of all times for a reason, and that many many millions of people the world over would advise him differently than the relatively small number of people he had taken advice from. Millions and millions could and would testify of its truth. I asked him if he had read it. He said no, again because he had been told it was fiction.

I then moved on to what he considered to be his source of truth. He admitted that he simply believed in nothing. I asked him if that weren't just a bit of a copout. He admitted that it was, but that it was still his position. By admitting that, he was admitting that he was desperate and seriously wanting help. Trouble is, his pride was creating a barrier to opening himself up to it. He did however say that he was enjoying our chat thus far. I didn't know what to do with him though.

We sat there for a while, maybe another half hour, before I moved on into another room to speak with friends, and he joined in a little later. What happened next, was just the Holy Spirit at work. I chatted him up and asked him how things were since we'd last met. A joke. I didn't let him off the hook however, and held him accountable for his statements. Enter, one of my friends. Laughing here.

My friend enjoys a good debate, to say the least. Even more, he enjoys talking to people who need Jesus. During the course of their long and enjoyable conversation/debate my friend managed to give him the Gospel and along the way explain the support for it with fulfilled prophecy and the testimony of believers. Although my friend was very kind and patient with him, the seeking man never knew what hit him. (Again I'm laughing here.) Eventually, my friend explained that what had hit him, (my term) was the Holy Spirit and His love.

This man, who only hours before had come onto the server in search of a place to supposedly confront and to vent, was faced with the fact that he had a personal choice to make, and stated that he had some serious things to think about and implied that that could be a good thing for him.

We think we see so much of what the Lord does. We see so little, and that's a very cool thing. He does so much 'behind the scenes' in people's hearts. I mean, who knows what kind of background this guy came from? Abusive or nurturing? Apathetic or active? Was he raised by his parents, or was he a ward of the state? Who knows. God knows. God has His hand prints all over this guy. People ask how God can allow such terrible things to happen to people.

The only terrible thing about God is the terribly fierce love He has for every person on this planet, and the One to one passion with which He pursues it.