An American friend, who lived in Ukraine as a missionary, told me an interesting story about an encounter he had with a young woman during his time there.
The story goes that this young woman was giving my friend a tour of the city of Odessa. As they walked from place to place, she began to open up a little and at one point she professed that she couldn’t understand how people believed in something so silly, archaic, and irrational as the existence of God. She was not belligerent; she was merely firm in the belief that her worldview was enlightened and progressive. There was no room in her world for what she considered to be an ancient and discredited myth. She was comfortable living in a godless world.
As they continued, they came to an area of town that starkly revealed the remnant ruins of the devastations of World War ll. The splintered bricks and hollowed out structures were fragments of a once populated and noisy place where families raised their children and lived normal lives. Now this area was nothing more than a wasteland where grass gripped the soil for dear life.
As they gazed on this desolate scene, my friend turned to the young woman and gently said, “Take a look at these shattered buildings. If you want to have an idea of what the world really looks like without God, here it is.” She surveyed the ashes of a city that once was thriving without uttering a word. My friend wondered whether she was linking this picture of the fruits of war with the political and intellectual effort to banish God once and for all. The woman lingered. Asking herself the same questions many of us would be at that exact moment: Why did this happen? Why is there so much death, disease and suffering in the world? Is this a world without God?
My missionary friend told me that he believed that moment in Odessa touched the heart of this young woman. He did not preach to her, he merely allowed the surroundings to paint a contrasting picture of the fullness and abundance of a world filled with love to a world absent of everything most people consider good.
Man without God is a war zone.
