"I Don't Discuss Religion."

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16)

I unhooked the wide farm gate and drove down a long dirt driveway to a house where Sally, a terminally-ill 80-year-old woman was expecting me. At the request of her daughter, I had visited her several times in the hospital. Now she was resting at home and facing her life’s inevitable end.

Sally’s daughter and two big, friendly dogs escorted me into the house.

When I entered Sally’s room, she smiled at me from a heavily pillowed recliner. She had consented to my visit, telling her daughter that when I visited her in the hospital I was friendly and nice, prayed, and didn’t stay long.

We shook hands.

“How are you getting along, Sally?” I asked.

“Fine. Just awfully tired.”

“I have been praying that the Lord will give you strength and patience for each day.”

“Uh, huh.”

“But something is more important than physical health, Sally. Jesus died to give us spiritual health—everlasting life. We are all going to leave this world sometime, but if we ask Jesus to be our Savior, we will go to heaven, where there is no more sickness or dying.”

Silence.

“Sally, would you like to have everlasting life? Would you like to believe on Jesus as your Savior?”

Turning her face away from me, Sally intoned, “I don’t discuss religion.”

“That’s good,” I replied, “neither do I. All the religion in the world can’t forgive sins or get anyone into heaven. Jesus didn’t come to earth to bring religion. He came to bring eternal life, and He died and rose again to make it happen.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, Sally, but I hope you will think about it. You can believe on Jesus as your Savior whether I am here or not.”

Like Sally, many men and women hold the I-don’t-discuss-religion attitude. It’s the-head-in-the-sand approach to life’s greatest issue. This attitude makes as much sense as driving blindfolded down a freeway to avoid having to acknowledge traffic exists and you have to deal with it. Why would anyone want to ignore Jesus, the One who loved us and laid down his life for us?

© 2008, Jim Dyet