Why is God So Hidden? W/ Lee Strobel!

What's up, guys? This is Ben from the Provoke and Inspire podcast. I'm very excited about our episode today. We had the incredible privilege of interviewing Lee Strobel. Lee Strobel, former award-winning legal editor of the Chicago Tribune, is a New York Times best-selling author whose books have sold millions of copies worldwide, including most famously The Case for Christ. Today, he's the founding director of the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. During this conversation, we talk about some of the most challenging barriers to belief in God. We focus mostly on the hiddenness of God. This idea that if God is there, why is he so hard to see? Why is he so hard to feel? This is a very common visceral objection that many skeptics, deconstructors, atheists feel about God. We dig into that. I am sure there is no one listening to this who hasn't either wrestled with this themselves or know someone who wrestles with this very important question. I really enjoyed this conversation. I know you will too. As always, if you do enjoy it, please share it with someone. And leave a rating and a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or wherever you consume this. That really helps increase the visibility of our podcast. And like always, this podcast is part of a larger admissions organization called Steiger International. We mobilize all followers of Jesus to reach people who would not walk into a church. You can get involved. You need to get involved. Go to steiger.org. All right. Well, I hope you enjoy our conversation with Lee Strobel. All right. Well, Lee, thank you for being on the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate you guys. This is very surreal. I was telling Aaron, I mean, I think your work was some of the beginnings of my interest in apologetics. And so, Uh, to have you on is, is amazing. And, and I'm so inspired that it's not past tense. It's present tense. You're still, you're still working. God's still using you. Um, and uh, that's, that's really inspiring. And could you just share for those that aren't familiar with your story? Like I am like Aaron is. Yeah. How do you got into this whole thing? Um, because it's very, I think it's very important and it sets kind of the foundation for what you do now. So could you share your story with our listeners? Sure. Uh, I was an atheist for much of my life. My background's in journalism and law. So I tend to be kind of a evidentially a fueled person, um, fact oriented, data oriented. Um, I became legal editor of the Chicago Tribune newspaper, did investigative series for them, and married a woman who was sort of in spiritual neutral, maybe agnostic, kind of hard to pigeonhole her, but really couldn't put the pieces of faith together. And, um, one day she met a woman who was a Christian and a nurse. They became best friends. This, uh, Christian woman invited Leslie, my wife, to church with her. My wife went. And after a period of investigating Christianity, she came to me and gave me the worst news that any atheist husband could get. She said, I've decided to become a Christian. And, uh, first word that went through my mind was divorce. I was going to walk out. Um, But then I thought, you know, if I could disprove the resurrection of Jesus, which even I as an atheist recognize that that's a lynchpin of the Christian faith, then I could rescue her from this cult that she's gotten involved in. So I used my journalism training and legal training to spend two years investigating not only the resurrection of Jesus, but also other evidence from science and philosophy and history. Until November the 8th of 1981, when I sat down and realized that in light of the avalanche of evidence that points so powerfully toward the truth of Christianity, it would have taken more faith to maintain my atheism than to become a Christian. Mm-hmm. And, uh, that's when I reached my verdict in the case for Christ and, um, repented of my sin, received Jesus as my forgiver and leader. And like her life, my life began to change my values, my character, my morality, my worldview, my relationship, my marriage. I mean, all these things over time for the good. And, um, Ended up leaving journalism at a 60% pay cut to join the staff of a church so I could spend the best hours of my day telling people about Jesus. And, um, that's what I've been doing ever since through books, through speaking and so forth. Awesome. For those of you that haven't read it, you need to check out kind of the, the, the book that introduced me to you back in the day was the case for Christ, which tells that story, right? Yeah. And so that, that is, if you haven't read The Case for Christ, you need to. But you're continuing to produce new resources, new content, and now you're coming out with this new book, Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life. Can you tell us a little bit about this book and why you've written it today and kind of how it came to be? Yeah, it's unusual in the sense that the publisher actually came to me and said, hey, we've noticed something interesting. 200 times a second, around the clock, someone on planet Earth is typing a question about God into a search engine. And often it's simply the question, is God real? And they said, you ought to do a book on that. I love that. And so I sat down and drew on some of my previous stuff, new stuff. And created a book that looks at science, philosophy, history, how it points toward the truth of Christianity. I look at other worldviews, pantheism and atheism. Um, and, um, uh, in a very, I hope accessible way. And then I looked at the two biggest objections of Christianity. Um, you know, if God is real, why is there suffering in the world? And if God is real, why does he seem so hidden? Hmm. Well, let's start right there then. I think what we were talking about before we started is that whole idea of the hiddenness of God. And I, I remember having a very personal example of this, a close friend of mine in high school, Um, was, you know, not walking with God and I, God really gave me a burden for him. And, uh, he ended up coming to Jesus. It's a long story, but it was very, very powerful. Walked with God for a few years. Um, but then as our paths kind of split and I went off and did, you know, college in a different context and he kind of, he ended up kind of walking away again. And I remember in one of the conversations we had, he voiced what I think is a pretty Common sentiment, which is, you know, if God cared so much that I would know him, right? If it would matter so much to him that I'd have this relationship with him, Then why does he make it so difficult for me to feel him, to see him, to experience him? And don't you think at the very least I'd have a good excuse for the way I've chosen to live in light of what is visible? Uh, so how do you answer that? Because I think that's hardly unique the way he's, he voiced that. I think unfortunately it's very common. Um, and it's often coming from a, I wouldn't say even an antagonistic heart. It's, it's often a very like. I want to believe, but I just, I don't see it. How, you know, obviously it's in the book and people need to read it for the depth. Um, but, but what's kind of in, in your conversations with these brilliant experts, including yourself, how did you navigate that or how would you navigate that, that difficulty? Well, it is a great question. In fact, uh, in 2022, I believe it was, um, The lead singer of Hawk Nelson, John Steingart, um, became, um, quite well known, uh, for the fact that he kind of walked away from Christianity and he cited this hiddenness of God as a main reason. In fact, I did a movie called The Case for Heaven and we featured him in that movie and allowed him to talk about his wrestling with the hiddenness of God. It's interesting in talking to philosophers, I found that, um, uh, the hiddenness of God is now probably the number two biggest objection. Uh, the number one is suffering in the world. Number two is why does God seem so hidden? So it's a legitimate question. It's often a heartfelt question. It's a complicated question. And, uh, that's why in the book I probably have thirty or forty pages that deal with it. But the short answer I think is we have to look at where the problem really lies. Does it lie with God or does it lie with us? Uh, biblically speaking, um, it would suggest it lies with us. Uh, Romans one verse twenty says that there is sufficient evidence in the world for us to see the divine attributes of God, his power and so forth, his divine nature. Um, and that we can see it clearly and that therefore we're without excuse. Uh, the problem the Bible says is that we tend to suppress that. We have our own motivations. We like to believe we're really receptive and we like to think that we're open. But the truth is we tend to suppress the knowledge of God, the evidence for God. In fact, in the Greek, the imagery is like a petal. We push down that pedal. We suppress this evidence that God exists and then it kind of creeps up and we suppress it again. We push down the pedal again and then it creeps up and we push it down again. That's kind of the Greek imagery. Um, so, uh, um, you know, is the problem with us? A lot of people say, yeah, I'm willing to go to God if I knew he was there. The problem is we want to do that on our terms. Um, the other issue is that God has a line to walk, um, on how much he reveals himself to us at the present time. You know, the Bible says that someday, if we're followers of Jesus, we will see him face to face. In other words, and that may be metaphorical, but we will encounter God in this very personal way. But that's not happening yet. So that's important to keep in mind. But God walks a fine line. He, he, He wants himself to be apparent to those who sincerely seek him. In Jeremiah and Hebrews, it says the Bible rewards those who sincerely seek him. So it doesn't say everybody will encounter God, but says that those who sincerely seek him Will encounter God. And so, um, you know, he wants to make himself apparent, apparent enough for them, but hidden enough for those that really don't want to know him. Um, and the reason for that is if God were to, um, reveal himself in all of his glory to us, In a sense, it takes away our free will. Because look at Isaiah, when he encountered God sitting on his throne, he was undone. He was, he became unglued at this experience and the power of encountering God is such that, um, uh, it, it would take away our free will. We wouldn't love him. Out of our free will, we may fear him or whatever, but that's not the same thing. The other thing to keep in mind, if God is truly omniscient, and I believe we have good reason to believe he is, then he would know where that line is. The degree to which to reveal himself so that the maximum number of people would come into a relationship with him. Also, it's important to keep in mind that God's goal is not that people know that he exists. That's not his goal. His goal, his desire is for us to respond to that, to humble ourselves. To get beyond our pride and to confess our sins and receive him as our forgiver and leader and have a relationship with him. There's a difference. So there have been times in history where... God has made himself totally apparent, for instance, um, with the Israelites going through the desert, you know, as a column of, of, of fire and, and, and a cloud and so forth. And when he parted the Red Sea and yet what happened? They still fell into apostasy. And so why would we think we'd be any different if God put a neon sign in the sky that says I am real? My bet is a lot of us would say, oh, that's an optical illusion. Oh, I can't trust that. That's, you know, that's a, that's a trick. Um, so it's a, it's a complicated question. I think the fact that God gave us an 800,000 page book about him is, And about his, about us and his, our purpose in life and his interactions with the world, uh, that shows his desire to guide us and to lead us. And a study that I did shows that nearly four out of ten Americans, that's 40%, 38%, have had at least one supernatural experience in their life where they have, um. Had something happened that they can only attribute to a miracle of God. And so some people have these dramatic supernatural experiences. I talk about those in my book as well. I think the motivation side of it is. Is very interesting. I remember it's hard to say this now, but the late Tim Keller, which is still very sad, but I heard him talk about the idea that There's an accusation levied against Christians that's often something to the effect of, well, you have all these motivations for wanting God to exist. And he pushes back and say, there are plenty of motivations for not wanting God to exist. Exactly. I think of the, of course, the famous Aldous Huxley quote, right? Yeah. You know, I had motives for not wanting the world to have any meaning. And consequently, I assumed that it had none. And of course, he goes on to talk about his desire to have sexual... Freedom, I'm reading a book right now, the Jonathan Haidt book, The Righteous Mind. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but it's a secular book, but the whole idea is We feel something and then like a lawyer, our rational brain goes to work to find reasons to justify how we feel. And so It's incredibly powerful, the motive of not wanting God to exist. So if it's at that visceral gut level, what do we do? Like, how do we, what do we do to come combat that, to counter that? Yeah, I think if we were to make up a religion, it wouldn't be Christianity. I don't think, would it? I mean, my religion would be, hey, do whatever you want. You know, and love the one you're with. And I mean, I would make up a total different religion. It's not one I would conjure up because I have a desire to believe in it. I respond to it because it's true because the evidence points toward those twenty lines of evidence that point toward the truth of Christianity. Um, but I do think that when we, when we try to get behind our, beyond our pride, and that's often the barrier, um, and often when we see people deconstructing their faith, I want to be honest, about 80% of the time, There's some sexual component to it. Um, as I've probed in, in individual cases. And so when we want to get beyond that and do what Jeremiah says in Hebrew says, this is sincerely seek God to seek out wholeheartedly, um, Um, just because you have not encountered him now doesn't mean you won't. Um, you know, as we, as we call out to him, you know, sometimes the absence of God is a good thing. It's the feeling that he's absent because it causes us to, to want him more causes us to call out more. Um, you know, I remember when I almost died a number of years ago and the doctor looked at me and said, you're one step away from a coma, two steps away from dying. Um, you know, at that kind of, um, moment in life where you're, you're desperate for God and you wish he would be there and hold your hand and stand next to you and sit on your hospital bed next to you. And he doesn't, um. You know, it made me seek him even more. It made me want him even more. And when times are going great, that's the times we generally don't want to know God. Yeah. Yeah. Things are fine. I don't need God. So, um, I, I think that when we call out to God and we don't sense he's there, let that be an impetus for seeking him even more. For fasting and praying and to do what Blaise Pascal said, go read what people of faith read like the Bible. Go where people of faith go like the church. And, um, hopefully you'll, you'll encounter people who will help, um, uh, grease the way for you to have a, uh, an encounter with God to change your, your heart and mind. Huh. That's so good. Yeah, I was just speaking, thinking about that. The challenge is pride. It's so hard to see in myself. Yeah. Right. Like I can see it in other people, but it is so deceptive when it comes to me. Yeah. And how much it's driving my motivation and how much it's clouding my vision. And, uh, you know, I'm thinking specifically about this particular tick tock that I shared with you before Lee that we can share a clip with now, but. It's this girl who grew up in the church. She's in her early twenties. Now she grew up in the church, the classic daughter of evangelical leaders and going on mission trips. And then she begins a slow deconstruction journey. Where she walks away from church community and she kind of has a one-on-one private faith kind of thing. And then at the end, as she's wrestling with some classic things, she says this. She said, I cried out to God. I begged him to reveal himself. I begged him to punish me if I was wrong. Countless tears, fasting, repentance, and I was met with silence. And I knew then, at the very least, the loving, kind, father-like God I'd grown up believing in Did not exist. And this is the part that really gets me. Because I knew the purity of my heart in that moment. And I knew that no loving God would abandon their children in a moment like this. Oh, it's, it's pretty intense. Yeah. And I have thoughts on that. But how, how would you, if you had an opportunity to sit down with this girl and it wasn't kind of a positive, open conversation, what would you say to her? Yeah, I think I'd want to relate to her. I think I'd want to empathize with her. I talk about times that I've called out to God and not heard a voice saying I am here. Take it easy. It's okay. I wish I did. Um, but I know that someday I will. And I've got his word to guide me, to lead me. Um, and I try to understand that faith is not fundamentally about feelings. It's about, it's about facts. It's about evidence. It's about data, uh, as well as our emotional response. And so the fact that I call out and I say, God, I want you here right now, you know. God's not a vending machine. I can't put in a quarter and demand that he show up at this very moment. Um, um, that, that is a, in a perverse way, kind of an, um, an example of pride. To say that I want you to do what I want you to do to show yourself to me. And if you don't, I'm going to walk away. I'd rather say, God, um. Um, I want to know you. I want to experience you. I want to have faith and trust in you. Um, I want to have a relationship with you and it's not easy when you're invisible. It's not easy when I don't hear your voice or feel your hand in mine. Um, and, and so God, I understand that you understand that. And so over time, um, reassure me through your Holy spirit. I belong to you that, that I am loved by you, that you are real, that you care about me. And you know, not, I don't want to be demanding and say, God, do this right now or I'm going to walk away. I want to say, God, um, you know, what's best. Um, and I'm going to continue to seek you. And I know that, uh, that you, at some point, um, even if it's in the world to come, you're going to make yourself, you know, obviously apparent to, uh, to me. Um, but this is what faith is. Uh, faith is taking a step in the same direction the evidence points. And, um, you know, in this world, um, you know, we don't often, although sometimes we do. Have that kind of personal, I mean, I have people that I know who have felt God speak to them. My friend, Evel Knievel, the former motorcycle daredevil guy who, um, Lived a very immoral life, a drunkard, um, had a woman in every city, um, gambler, standing on the beach in his later years and, and feeling God speak to him. Robert, I've saved you more times than you'll ever know. Now you need to come to me through my son, Jesus. And it shocked him and it led to him coming to faith and having a radical conversion to Christ to the point where after he died on his tombstone, it says, believe in Jesus Christ. So some people have that kind of direct experience. We have the phenomenon in the Middle East where Muslims are having Jesus dreams in which Jesus appears to them in their dreams in a dramatic way. And points to people who will share the gospel with them and they wake up and they meet the person from their dream and they have a conversation about the gospel and they come to faith. We're seeing that all over the Middle East. So there are people who do have those kinds of experiences. Yeah. We don't always and we don't all have that. Um, but sometimes just knowing about those stories is encouraging to me. I think the common thread in that was the person of Jesus, right? And that should obviously come as no shock given what we believe, but it is ultimately the testimony of Jesus that Kind of kills any argument that God is indifferent, right? If he'd be willing to send his son, how could we possibly claim that he's indifferent? And I remember being in Ukraine on ministry and this was before the war. Um, but I, I was talking to two guys after a ministry event that we did and very intellectual guys, brilliant. One was a physicist, other guy, an artist. And very sincere, but very bright. And we're having this conversation. And finally, one of the guys just looked at me and said, look, you know, how is it that you can believe this God that would give you so much and us so little, you know, and he was kind of talking about the economic comparison or the Advantages that I had as an American compared to them as Ukrainians. And again, I, I said, look, I, I can't give you all the answers to those questions, but here's what I can tell you. Was here. He would know this city. He would, he would be a friend of those that nobody cared about. He came in fact to a place that nobody cared about and spent time with people. That were disregarded by culture. If Jesus was here, he would come to you. And I said, in fact, we're here in your city. With this show for free as unpaid volunteers because we so love this Jesus that I'm talking about and so want you to experience him like we have and that just it just broke down. Mm-hmm. Any sense of division between us and in the person of Jesus, it was so visceral, I think, to him that That, okay, he, he might be far away, at least it feels like it at times, but man, it's hard to argue with the person of Jesus and what he did on earth. Do you, isn't that ultimately, as it is with so many of our answers, the, the, the core part of our, our argument against the, right. But it's important to keep in mind our faith in Jesus is not a blind faith. It is a faith supported by science, by evidence, by strong historical data. That Jesus not only claimed to be the son of God, but he backed it up by returning from the dead. And he proved that he's the son of God. Therefore, I can trust his words when he says, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I may not feel it. Um, uh, but he is, he is with us always, even to the end of the age. And so, um, um, I have trust in that because of where the evidence points. And I think that's important to keep in mind as well. Yeah. I, I think another way of just, if we stick with this, this girl and her kind of, I cried out and I got nothing thing. One of them, As Ben rightly said, it's Jesus' proof that he is not indifferent and that he actually entered into our world. I think the other thing is you can't cry out to a God of your own making and expect this idol or this God that you've created in your mind to respond. You have to, you have to cry out and, and with no conditions, right? It's that, that's why pride is the answer. It's a full surrender. I can't say, God, I'm crying out to you, but you've got to look like this and fit in this box. Yeah. And respond in this way. And in my time. Right. It's not submission. It's not surrender. And I think that plays into it as well. So comment on that a little bit. Absolutely. I think you're right. We, we want to come to God on our terms because of the sense of pride that we have. If you are a God that says all sexual activity is okay. If you do that, then, then I'll come to you. Um, or whatever. We want to set the preconditions. I want to come, I'll come to you if you show yourself to me right now. Appear to me right now. Um, there's a famous, um, um, Incident in which Madeline Murray O'Hare, the famous atheist in America, um, stood in the rain in her backyard and looked up to the sky and said, God, if you're there, um, um, appear right now. And when he didn't, she said, aha, there is no God. Well, if God is taking orders from us, he's not really God. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. When it comes to the whole rational exploration of God and trying to fully understand him, I wasn't expecting to ask this question, but I think it's relevant based on what you just said, which is that... Where is the limit of that, right? Where, where is the limit of, of a God I can fully explain is a God not worthy of my worship, I would say. Right? It's just because by definition, if the created can perfectly understand the creator, it's, it's, that doesn't, that's non sequitur, right? That's logically fallacious. And so. Right. I, I totally hear what you're saying. It's part of this beautiful composite of, of there's historical facts. How do we, how do we manage all that? How do we place it in its proper place? The way I look at it is if you've ever driven down a highway and you see these construction barriers along blocking off a lane. And to me, apologetics or giving evidence and reasons for the faith is just something that knocks down these construction barriers between you and God. There are these barriers. There's our pride. There's, there's, um, uh, our self-interest and so forth. Uh, and, and what apologetics does or giving evidence is that It knocks down each of those one by one until we come face to face with Jesus. And so we can't argue people into the kingdom of God, but we can do is kind of clear the way. And we are rational people because God is a rational God and he created us in his image. And therefore, it makes sense that we would be seeking evidence for the reality of our faith. And, uh, when we do that, it gives us confidence that Jesus is who we claim to be the unique son of God. And therefore he's worth listening to. And, um, um, even when I can't hear his voice audibly, I, I can read his voice in scripture and I can trust that he is with me even to the end of the age. Yeah. I think another question I have for you because this is so relevant to the whole topic of apologetics and tough questions is If you go back to the story of this girl that I shared, one of the things that happens is she begins to challenge, see some things, and she ends up leaving the faith and deconstructing basically on her own or probably found some online people deconstructing. Yeah. And it's a pretty common story. Yeah. And I think there's lots of reasons. Sometimes the reason is because we in the church don't create an environment. Yes. An open environment where it's okay to ask tough questions, to doubt, and to wrestle that within the Christian community. Can you speak to that? That's huge, Aaron. We need to help Christians understand. It's like this, like when you're a little kid and you have a nightmare, you wake up in the middle of the night and you're sweating and your heart's beating fast and you're scared to death and What do you do? You run into your parents' bedroom and jump into their beds. I had a nightmare. I had a nightmare. And your parents say, well, tell us about it. Oh, well, I dreamed there were, it was a monster with five eyes and he was all green. He was living under my bed and had five arms and, and then you start to laugh. How was I even afraid of this? When we, and the same is true of our doubts and our questions. If we hold them in, they can erode our soul. But if we talk about them, they lose their power over us. And there are so many good resources we can go to, to get good answers. So. Yep. You know, I look at the case of John the Baptist of all people who should have been absolutely sure of the identity of Jesus being the son of God. It was John the Baptist, but he gets arrested and he gets thrown in prison and he starts to have doubts. He's sitting there and he's thinking, okay, is Jesus the one we've been waiting for? We'd have waited for somebody else. So what does he do? Does he, does he wallow in that? Does he allow that to erode his faith? No, he gets a couple of friends together, says, go track Jesus down and ask him point blank. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Are we to wait for somebody else? So they track down Jesus and they say, hey, Jesus, John's freaking out. Um, are you the one we've been waiting for? Are we to wait for somebody else? But here's the deal. How does Jesus react to this question, this doubt expressed by John? Does he get angry? Does he say, how dare John of all people have the temerity to express a hesitation about my identity? No. He says, quote, go back to John and tell him about the evidence you've seen that convinces you that I am the one I claim to be. That's beautiful. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy or cured, the deaf ear, the dead are raised. And the good news is preached to the poor. Tell them about the evidence that convinces you that I am the one I claim to be. So they go back and they tell John. But has this now disqualified John from any role in the kingdom of God because he dared to ask a question? No. It's after this incident. And Jesus gets up before a group and he says, among those born of women, there's no one greater than John. That's cool. Aaron, you're right. We need to create. Youth groups in our churches, student groups, we need to create ministries and churches where, and families, Christian families, where it's okay to ask questions that are plaguing us. Um, and to work those out in community. Um, and today there's so many good resources out there to help us wrestle through this kind of stuff. That weren't there thirty years ago. So, um, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's, it's one of the missing elements of the modern church is the capacity to, um, be an open door to those who have questions and doubts. Yep. And, and I would say as you're talking, I was thinking cause you know, Ben and I, we both have kids and we're raising them in this world and it's a crazy world. And so I'm like, I want to create those in that environment in our home. But I also think about the people today. We live in a post-Christian culture. Many will not walk into a church. Many are very, you know, have all sorts of misconceptions. And not only is that good for creating that environment for people individually, In the church to, to, so that they grow up strong and resilient and don't walk away, but it's also an incredible way to draw people from outside the church. Right. To create an environment where they, where, cause we live in this cancel culture, right? Yeah. And sometimes as Christians, we think we're the only ones affected by it, but we're not. Like, everyone is afraid of saying something that'll get, be offended and lead to cancel, you know, all that stuff. And so it creates a sense where no one wants to say anything. And so if you create an environment where, hey, come. And, you know, we're gonna have a, we have, like, Steiger, we have resources called Spiritual Conversations for the Non-Religious. And it's like, you can express your views, you can ask hard questions, you can doubt, you can disagree with me, and I'm not gonna be offended. Yeah. And I'm gonna love you. And the idea is this. I'm not here to convince you that I'm right. I want to encourage you to pursue the truth. Yes. And those are two very different things. And it's the belief that an honest pursuit of truth always leads to Jesus because he's the truth. And I'm confident in that. So can you speak to that a little bit? This is one of the innovations that we teach at our center called the Lee Strobel Center for Evangelism and Applied Apologetics at Colorado Christian University. Uh, we have courses that train Christians how to create small group experiences for non-believers. We call them spiritual discovery groups. And, uh, so you can take a course through us. It's all online. It's inexpensive. Do it at your own pace. Teach you how to lead these groups. And, uh, One of the things we teach you is you're not the Bible answer man. Yes. Don't sit there and feel like you're on the hot seat and you're going to give answers to every tough question. No. No. The answer is create an environment of discussion, of honesty, of empathy, uh, of letting people express their own thoughts and their own ideas and, you know, bring a general Christian perspective as we can. And so we tested these groups in Chicago. Pretty soon we had 1100 nonbelievers in these groups. A typical group is six or eight nonbelievers and two Christians, usually a Christian couple. So we had 1100 nonbelievers in these groups and we test them over a period of time, watch them. And what we found is if a nonbeliever joins one of these groups and stays in it, 80% come to faith in Christ. That's cool. 80%. Where do you get an 80% conversion rate? But this is what you're talking about. We need to create a culture where there's a safe place to come and to ask dangerous questions. Yep. Um, and, and not to be offended by that. God's not surprised. Do you think God's surprised when we ask a tough question? I mean, he goes, oh, I never thought of that. No, he's not. He's not in that position. Right. So I, I totally agree with you. I've done question answers in front of thousands of people. Um, and just said, bring on your questions. And, and, um, I think People appreciate that. I mean, I have every answer, but, um, you know, let's, let's explore things together. Let's wrestle with this together. Yeah, that's, that's so great. Um, a verse you hear a lot in the context of apologetics is first Peter three fifteen Yeah. It feels very common and kind of a thought that's been interesting. And in my mind about that, it's, it's obviously, it says that you should be prepared to give a reason for the hope. That is in you. And, and so the assumption there is that people around you are seeing hope in you. And, and while of course there is a. A role for removing those barriers, as you said, that will allow people to see God or come to him face to face. To me, it's not necessarily that they see the right answers in you or even all of the answers to the tough questions they have. What would you say Like, cause cause a lot of the struggle is how do we start these conversations? How do we, how do we have that engagement? Like we can arm ourselves with all this knowledge, but I think a lot of us can feel immobilized beyond that. Yeah. And, and this seems to imply people are going to come to you. Yeah. So, so what is it that we should be fostering or exhibiting that would maybe make those interactions more natural? Other than just all these great answers, and they are great. I've changed my approach in recent years because culture has changed. So, uh, fifteen years ago, uh, if I'm getting into a conversation with someone who's spiritually confused or not a Christian, uh, I would often ask this question. If you could ask God any one question and you knew he'd give you an answer right now, what would you ask him? And then 80% of the time, the question would be some permutation of, um, if God is real, wise or suffering in the world. And then I would kind of give a five point answer to that issue. I don't do that anymore. Now what I do is I say to someone, let me ask you a question. If you could ask God any one question and you knew he'd give you an answer, what would you ask? Well, I'd ask, why does God allow suffering? Then I say, I ask another question. I say, whoa, Of all the potential questions in the universe, why did you choose that one? Now we get down to the personal side because then they say because we lost a baby in childbirth five years ago and I want to know where was God when that happened or my wife's been diagnosed with cervical cancer and I want to know where is God in the middle of that. Now we're getting to the personal side and people though, these individuals don't need a five point intellectual response on why God allows suffering. They need me as a follower of Jesus. To embody Jesus at that moment. To put my arm around their shoulder. To empathize with them. To listen to them. To weep with them. To be with them in that moment. That's what they need. And then later, as the question rolls out, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's help them understand there are good answers to this, but Um, I've learned that I want to get to the real issues and often the real issues that people have are not intellectual. It's not the first thing they're asking. They're asking, like this young woman did, where's God? I've been calling out to him. I don't hear him. I don't see him. Totally legitimate. Let's talk about that. Um, where is God in the midst of my suffering? Totally legitimate. Let's talk about that, but let's not confine it to a bunch of philosophical syllogisms. Let's not just confine it to scientific data. Uh, let's be, you know, you quoted first Peter three fifteen What people often forget is the last part of that, which says do this with gentleness and respect. And that's what I want. I want to respect where people are coming from. And I want to be gentle and kind as Jesus was gentle and kind. Yeah, it's so good. And again, kind of circling back to our conversation about the relevance of Jesus, obviously, and all of this is in these encounters, and we have these as well, these spiritual conversations. What you're really hoping for through the power of the Holy Spirit is a moment where they can just encounter Jesus for the first time and you can feel the atmosphere change. When that starts to happen. And so even in those conversations, I'm always looking for that moment to kind of either tell my story, right. To, to pivot it to a sense of look. At the end of the day, I was, I was dead and I encountered Jesus and I, I became alive and I want, when God looks at you, he sees a son or a daughter and he loves you. Yeah. More than you can imagine. And, and you know, you, you, you struggle and you do things you don't want to do and you hurt people and God, we, we try to fix it in politics and, and all these other things and remedies and pills and it doesn't work. Jesus is what you're, and when you get down to that level and you start really looking him in the eye, to me, that's when the Holy Spirit really starts to come alive in those moments. And all of it, I know you would say this, all of this, It's just a bunch of excuses to get to that moment where the Holy Spirit can pull back the curtain and reveal the person of Jesus. I, when my, when my wife's grandma died, Our local pastor was doing the, the, um, the service and he said something very simple, but stuck with me. And he said, you know, peace is not the rearrangement of circumstances. It's the presence of a person. And basically what he was saying is, yeah, you would want this suffering to be taken away, but that wouldn't give you peace. What gives you peace is the person of Jesus. Yeah. And that's what people need as much as they feel like what they need is a perfect, uh, visible revelation of Jesus and no hardships and no difficulties and all their dreams to come true. What they need and what they're longing for, even if they don't consciously know it, is that relationship with the person of Jesus. Yeah. And it, it, it all comes back to that. And so it's so encouraging to hear that. The way God is using you both personally, but then in these discovery groups, it's awesome. We need more of that. Yeah. And we'll just close here. I just wanted to say thank you, not only for this conversation, but for what you, the voice you've had in the Christian community and the encouragement you've been to so many. And to us as well. And, um, yeah, just so thankful for what you're doing. We're excited for the work you're doing at Colorado Christian University and the Applied Apologetics Center. And all of that. So guys, check it out. Check out his new book, Is God Real? And also the training and resources that they have. Um, and these are unbelievable resources. All of this conversation we have, you can go deeper on that. So check that out. We, we encourage that. And again, Lee, thank you. Thank you for the time. Thank you for the encouragement. I think you can tell for this conversation, man, we are aligned with you and we're, we're, we're in it together. So thank you. Aaron and Beth, thank you, man. You're right. We are aligned. We are one heart. We want to see people come alive in Christ. Um, we want to see people experiencing God. We want to see people headed for heaven. And uh, we share that and I am so excited about what you all are doing to reach this next generation. Um, you know, it, it, it's a key generation, twice as many young people call themselves atheists as in my generation. Uh, there's a lot going on there. There's a lot of depression. There's a lot of anxiety. There's a lot of loneliness and so forth. And, um, I, I love the way your organization. Approaches that in a holistic way. Uh, looking at the whole person and how we can help them meet God in a way to change their lives and change their eternity. So thanks for what you're doing. And, um, as we, um, as we Texans say, I appreciate you. Yeah. Well, again, leastroble.com. It's on the screen here. Um, it's fairly straightforward to spell. You can find everything there. You know, we're just different members of the same body, Lee, and it's so encouraging and, and you've, you've inspired us and I know God's using you powerfully and, uh, Yeah. Keep up the good work. Hopefully we can, we can talk again and partner in, in deeper and broader ways for the kingdom. Absolutely. Um, but I know our listeners are going to love this and I'm sure there are questions we didn't, uh, answer, which is why they have to get the book. Uh, is God real? Go check that out. Go get it. Um, and, uh, encourage and support all that Lee's doing. Uh, but thank you. This has been fun. This has been great. I've enjoyed it. And very surreal on some levels and hopefully we can do it again. That'd be awesome. Anytime, guys. All right. Thank you. God bless. Thank you for listening to the provoke and inspire podcast. If you enjoy this content, consider leaving us a rating and a review on iTunes. Got questions for the guys? Send them to provokeandinspire at steiger.org. Thanks for listening.