Letter from Lydia Jones

Charlie,

Thanks so much for supplying me with these devotional guides. I was in Mexico with family over Thanksgiving and brought mine with me. Having my devotional out and my Bible open sparked some interesting conversation, especially on the flight over. I was sitting next to a young man right out of high school who was reading a horrible book that I'd heard of before, called I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (yes, that really is he name of the book and unfortunately it is being made into a movie). I had heard of it before - it's essentially about a twentysomething man who womanizes and parties like there's no tomorrow and lived to write about all of his exploits. Anyways, the young man (Lane) and I had spoken a little bit, and then at one point in the flight he said, "here you have to read this part." So I did. And I said, "I hope you're not taking life lessons from this guy," and we continued to go back and forth about it. I was wondering how to bring up the gospel but God did that for me. After I had encouraged him enough to STOP reading the book, he said, "Fine, then! I'll read your book instead!" and grabbed my Bible. He opened it up and just stopped. He said, "are you KIDDING me?? You're reading the BIBLE?" and he continued to laugh uncontrollably. It was like he almost couldn't believe he had actually met a real, live Christian. I told him that I believed Christ was my only hope and my salvation and that all other roads lead to emptiness, and he literally just looked around (almost to imaginary people) saying, "This is real? This is goooood stuff (mockingly). You really believe this?" in disbelief that someone would actually believe it. Anyways, what it boiled down to was that he doesn't even believe in God. And I kept encouraging him to be real with himself because God has made himself evident to us. And he kept laughing at me. But you know, it was almost like, where do you begin with someone who isn't even looking for anything spiritual? It's not like he's searching for the "unknown god" like in Athens. He's looking for nothing. I think there's an entire generation growing up that has no experience with church and likes it that way. He's Canadian but there are plenty of young people here whose parents are unchurched and who have no intentions of believing in that religious stuff.

That's where the Holy Spirit comes in -- He has to touch Lane's heart before he will ever listen to what I'm saying.

We ended it by me telling him that I'd pray for him. He said, "please do" but laughed the whole time. Pray for Lane, will you? And pray for this generation.

I ended up writing a lot and didn't intend to. Just wanted to share with you.

In Him,
Lydia