"Single," I announced as I skied over to the chair lift, wondering who would share it with me.

An older man approached me and said, "I'm single . . . I'll ride up with you." We sat down on the lift and swung up the mountain. The man introduced himself as Pete while he lit up a filterless Lucky Strike cigarette.

He seemed talkative, so I began the conversation with, "Tell me Pete, you appear to have led an interesting life. How have you lived it?" With that Pete told me about his wild youth. He had dropped out of high school and joined the Air Force, where the wild living turned to debauchery. Then he came to his senses, cleaned up his act, and used the same energy and drive to pursue success. He earned his GED and two university degrees and retired a colonel. Since then he had built up and sold a profitable computer company, divorced, and was now a comfortable ski bum. I felt like he had shared his testimony!

We were at the top of the mountain and Pete asked if I'd like to ski with him. I had to make a quick decision. A few years ago I would have politely turned him and down skied off in the other direction. But that day I swallowed hard and decided to risk spending more time with Pete.

The next ride up the mountain Pete initiated, "I told you my story . . . now it's your turn to tell me yours." So I began. Then I got to the part where I had become a Christian. "Oh no!" Pete interrupted. "You're not one of those, are you? I always run into your kind."

That threw me off for a moment. But I replied, "My being a Christian seems to have touched something in you. Tell me how you feel about Christians and why they draw such a negative response from you."

So Pete told me about a series of events in which Christians had offended him or tried to stuff the gospel down his unwilling throat. He said, "You seem different. You're the first Christian that has asked me what I think about Christians! Why is that?"

I was grateful we were at the top of the mountain right then because it bought me some time to think of an answer while skiing. Once on the lift again, I reminded him of his question and explained that I knew most people had opinions about religion and religious people and that I found their opinions fascinating. Then, for the rest of the day, I asked his opinions about God, Jesus, the Bible, sin, salvation, etc., and why he felt as he did. In return, Pete turned the questions around and invited me to respond.

Driving home, I thought about how I had enjoyed the discussion with Pete and realized how much I would have missed if I'd skied away from him. My response to nonChristians had changed—drastically. The process of growth I had experienced in the years leading up to my encounter with Pete would forever affect how I talk to others about God.

Face-to-Face with My Sinfulness

For years I suffered from a bad case of "spiritual snootiness." My opinions about what was right and wrong (sinful and not sinful) kept me in a tight box. I hung around only with people who were just like me. From within my box, I judged people whose behavior was "sinful" and kept them at a safe distance. To be honest, Pete's lighting up that Lucky Strike cigarette and subsequent tale of debauchery would have been reason enough for me to avoid him.

Then several years ago I was given the gift of being confronted with specific sinful behavior of my own. I knew deeper issues were underneath the behavior, so I began to explore what was going on inside me. I read books, talked with a counselor, wrote in journals, and spent hours allowing God to search my heart.

During the process of taking a hard look at myself, I unexpectedly came face-to-face with my own sinfulness and my hopeless, futile attempts to control it. My outward set of behaviors was superficially different from a man like Pete's, but the core of our hearts was the same.

Getting a good, hard look at who I was knocked me down several notches on my totem pole of spiritual accomplishments. The truth of Is. 64:6 gripped my heart: "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." I had never put myself in the "all" category, although I automatically put people like Pete there.

Sinful behavior is still sinful, but the utter depravity of the human soul is the real crux of the issue. When I am face-to-face with who I am, the behavioral differences between me and others melts away. I am on the same level as people like Pete—or anybody for that matter—hurt by others' sin and in need of a Savior because of my own sin. It is not threatening to stand next to others who are just like me. I'm saddened but not shocked by their sin, because I know that the sin within me is equally black.

Face-to-Face with My Savior

When I started to come to grips with my sinfulness an amazing thing happened: the Person and work of Jesus crystallized in my heart. This was the second major change in my attitude. I expected to suffer a crushing blow to my self-esteem because of my wretchedness. Instead, when I embraced the truth of my sinfulness, I began to understand my incredible worth in His eyes. Christ died for me even though I was a sinner (Ro. 5:8)! I wept, not just over the shame of my sinfulness, but out of gratitude to my Savior. I saw myself in the place of the woman caught in adultery in John 8, bowed in fear and shame. I could almost feel Jesus touch her face, look up and see the acceptance in His eyes.

Reading on in Is. 64:7–8, this relationship between owning sin and experiencing redemption is described:

No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand

.

Two verses earlier our righteousness was described as filthy rags. Admitting this frees us to see that we aren't rags, but clay. Clay in the hands of a master craftsman.

All the years I lived in that tight box, trying so hard to maintain the right behavior, I never felt like God quite accepted me. But when I faced my sinfulness, I came face-to-face with my Savior. The gospel shifted in my mind from a set of facts to a Person—the Person of Jesus. I saw His compassion in a new perspective. I read about His interactions with people in the gospels with fresh appreciation. I found myself both drawn to Him and fearful of Him. I started to develop a passion to know Him, not just to know about Him. My prayer life changed from going through a list to an ongoing conversation with an intimate friend. And this introduced the third major change in my attitude—I wanted others to know about Him.

Heart-to-Heart with People

Now when I meet people like Pete I want them to know Jesus. I can visualize them someday grappling with the pain in their lives and being healed from the damage of sin because of a Savior. Rather than being offended by Pete's depravity, I was drawn to his dignity. I was genuinely interested in what he thought about God and the other topics we discussed.

For instance, Pete had established that he didn't really believe in God. Because I respected his opinion, I didn't argue. But because I was comfortable with him I was honest. Once when we got off the chair lift I gazed out at the panorama of beauty and said, "Pete, when I look at this view, it draws praise from deep within my soul for God the Creator. What does it make you think of?" Pete paused and said, "Well, you got me on that one  . . . I do believe there is a Creator."

When I asked Pete about his divorce and ex-wife, he gave me cliche answers. I had a hunch that relationship was filled with pain, so I probed deeper. And he opened up about his sense of failure and frustration with the pressures of marriage. At one point he said, "You really care, don't you?"

But caring about Pete as a person wasn't enough—I had to learn how to talk with people. And that has been the fourth change in how I talk to people about God.

Face-to-Face with People

I doubt Pete had attended as many workshops on learning how to talk to people about what he believed as I had. For years whenever I was in a conversation that turned "spiritual," I'd flip into my witnessing mode. My conversations had a hidden agenda: their conversion or at least that they'd listen kindly and agree with my views. I desperately needed to create a two-way conversation.

So I tried to stifle the urge to give answers and began simply to ask questions. That was hard for me to learn. Like most Christians who have been trained in evangelism skills, I thought of myself more as an answer person than a conversationalist. In fact, there were times I was so afraid of another's differing opinion I'd beat them to the punch with a succinct presentation of the gospel.

Now I ask people the who, what, when, where, and whys of their lives. Because I am learning to genuinely respect people, I understand that a person's preconceived opinion of religion and their experiences with religious people affect their receptiveness of the gospel. In asking questions, I am pleasantly surprised to discover that people are delighted to tell me their opinions and feelings about spiritual matters. Pete and I talked about the gospel for eight hours!

Out of the "Spiritual" Box

On the last lift of the day, Pete said, "I don't know of anyone more different than you and me, but I can't remember enjoying a day of skiing as I have enjoyed today. I normally tell people like you that you are misguided  . . . but I can't tell you that. Whenever you talk about Him, I can almost see Him. At least I see a capital ‘H'." I sensed Pete's saying even that much required a lot of vulnerability for him. I cherish His comment as a deep compliment of God's work in my life.

When Pete asked me to ski with him, I'm so glad I didn't politely go off in another direction just to avoid spending time with someone so outwardly different. Of course I wish he'd made a decision to believe. But I'm grateful that God is catapulting me out of my smug, tight box that once kept people like Pete at arm's length. Instead, I'm more aware of just how similar to Pete I am. That gives me tremendous freedom to simply come alongside each person I meet, to listen, to learn, and to talk about the Savior.

Becky Brodin wants to "nudge believers toward an evangelism that respects unbelievers, in the context of genuine relationships built on a foundation of humility and being real." She says, "I'd love for Christians to enjoy the freedom of being themselves with unbelievers—not above, not aloof, not tainted by them."