Imagine I am young and unhappy and looking for answers. I'm unemployed and cant find a girlfriend. I feel so depressed I have contemplated suicide. I am desperate. I want an answer asap, otherwise...??
I cannot say exactly what I would do or say because I would be inwardly praying that God would direct my thoughts and words. But probably I would start by talking briefly about my own hard times, my testimony would be personal and I would reveal how God had changed my own life. Much would then depend on how he would respond.
But let me share a bit about the nature of faith and reason, because people wrongly think we can prove God to people and that this will bring them to faith. Atheists are always demanding overwhelming evidence.
Christian faith requires primarily a heart (spirit) based choice, and only secondarily requires evidence. Some people require more evidence and some less. You see,
in general, people believe what they WANT to believe. You cannot convince someone of an invisible reality (like love, or God) who does not want to be convinced. No amount of proof will be sufficient to believe in the Resurrected Christ unless Jesus Christ suddenly appeared before them and spoke to them, and even then some would not believe it was Him, even if He did miracles before their eyes.
Jesus said
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.” So to think that any flesh and blood human being can truly convince someone of the existence of God or the divine nature of Jesus Christ is foolish. We Christians evangelize and try to convince people but only God Himself can make them believe.
Reason and logic have their severe limits when it comes to faith, but we should never check our brains at the door when examining or discussing faith issues. And when it comes to evangelism, we must remember that reason is the common ground for unbelievers and believers. A couple of excellent quotes:
“There is much misunderstanding about faith. It is commonly supposed to be a
leap in the dark, totally incompatible with reason. This is not so. True faith is never unreasonable, because its object is always trustworthy. When we human beings trust one another, the reasonableness of our trust depends on the relative trustworthiness of the people concerned. But the Bible bears witness of Jesus Christ as absolutely trustworthy. It tells us who he is and what he has done, and the evidence it supplies for his unique person and work is extremely compelling. As we expose ourselves to the biblical witness to this Christ, and as we feel its impact -- profound yet simple, varied yet unanimous --
God creates faith within us. We receive the testimony. We believe.” (John R. W. Stott)
“It is not a case of proving first and then believing. We cannot believe theological truths for non-theological reasons. Rather,
it is only when we encounter the living God in faith that we are in a position to grasp the truth of Christian faith. God then enables us to see with spiritual eyes what we could not previously see. The spirit is able to understand what the mind of the flesh is unable to conceive. The task of philosophical theology [and every attempt to integrate theology and science] is to examine the implications of this. It does so for the benefit of both the believer and the unbeliever, to enable them to see where matters stand. It is neither an alternative nor a short-cut to faith. It is more like an attempt to let faith take stock of its intellectual position.” (Colin Brown, from "Philosophy and the Christian Faith”)
