A Light in the Ruins

An American friend who once lived as a missionary in Ukraine told me a story about an encounter he had with a friendly atheist. This young woman was giving him a tour around the city of Odessa. As they walked from place to place, she began to open up, and at one point, she told him that believing in God was both ridiculous and irrational. How could any educated person believe that God existed? She was not belligerent; she just stated her belief as a proven fact. She indicated that she was doing fine without God in her life.

As they were talking, they came to a blighted intersection that was nothing more than a ruin left over from the devastation of World War II. The decaying and empty structures were fragmented shells. Rubble rather than trees created an impression of an arid wasteland. Even flowers and weeds seemed to avoid this desolate place.

It was at that moment that my missionary friend turned to the woman and gently observed: “Look around. If you want to know what the world looks like without God, here it is.” She gazed at the wretched scene and seemed to make the link between a war torn world and man’s banishment of God. Did she see the relationship between famine, disease and war and mankind’s fractured relationship with the God who created us and nurtured us? Can love even exist in such a place? My missionary friend believes he touched her by using that wretched picture as a way of introducing God back into her life. He did not make his point with words, nor with arguments or talking points. He just revealed the obvious and he let that do its work in her heart.