The Battered and Beautiful

    Yesterday I had a friendly debate with an atheist.  I'm still trying to let my brain digest that fact.  You see, I'm not a debater.  Especially not with a man, and especially not about a potentially explosive subject.  But I did.  He told me he was an atheist, and started asking questions about my faith.  I answered, and came back with questions trying to shake his firm stance.  It was one of those things I just couldn't let go.  I had to defend my faith, period.

    Friends, defending your faith is hard.  His questions and statements weren't overly tough, but it was his attitude that shook me.  My brain was whirling from his enthusiastic comebacks to my questions.  This guy wasn't interviewing my faith in hopes of hiring it; he was merely making conversation.

    Even if he wasn't buying it, I had to keep talking Jesus.  Even if my words bounced off his heart, I was the only Bible he would see that day. 

    I prayed a couple times during my debate, that God would give me the right words to speak.  I had hoped God would blow his mind with some undeniable truth from my mouth, but it didn't happen.  To me, it sounded like The Athiest was winning the debate.  Still, I had to keep talking Jesus - if it had to be in my own lowly faltering backwards way, so be it.  Because I was the only Bible he would see that day. 

    If God didn't give me an amazing speech, my unprepared comebacks must've been better - from a God's eye point of view.  I can't see it now, but in God's plan he didn't have Ariel blowing the mind and heart of The Athiest towards God.  His plan probably sounded more like Ariel trusting God to get her through her first witnessing experience.  Because sometimes our Bibles are battered and torn.  Sometimes we underline the wrong verse and accidentally rip a page half out.  The book we love the very most shows both our triumphs and our trials.  
Friends, I urge you; don't hide your Bibles.  Don't wince when The Athiests in your life stare at the crayon scribbles in Genesis or the flimsy spine falling apart.  Because you are the only Bible they will see today.  Don't hide the truth because it sounds a little rough.  Because God speaks, believe it or not, through battered Bibles.  They are the most beautiful kind, because those are the only Bibles they will see today.