I would agree that your approach may work with some people. However not all people respond to the subtle approach. If we approached everyone this way there would be people who would never consider asking her why she is at peace.
Sometimes you have to be as ‘open’ as they are to you. For all the time she sits there and eagerly tells YOU about HER ideas and beliefs, sometimes I would say you have to be like that towards her with YOUR faith and share concrete truths with her. Don’t be afraid to explicitly name Jesus and explain the Gospel and why you have a certain hope of being saved even though you don’t deserve it and can’t earn it. You have to be prepared for the responses that may come from this:
- she may try to ‘one-up’ you about the latest thing she’s in.
- she may stop bringing up spiritual stuff altogether because she doesn’t want you going into your faith.
- she may not want to hear your insights.
- she may ask more thought-provoked questions about what you have told her.
- she may discover you have something important and wants to know more about it.
Those are great ideas and points to be prepared. I’m not so sure I could be patient enough and not get aggravated though! But it could be something as simple as “I love you, and I want to hear about what goes on in your life and what is important to you. And in kind I will tell you what goes on in my life and what is important in my life”.
And pray EXTRA hard to have patience and wisdom ahead of time so it doesn’t end up in a big arguement.
I had a land lady once and we were friends and we would talk religous things and we were able to keep things on a very friendly level even though we both thought each other’s religions were wrong. But were able to explain things about our beliefs.
Thanks. That really is about the truest course. She does like to talk up various goofy things. We exchanged email and I had to tell her to stop after countless refuting her with Snopes. Kinda laughable at the time...but now I’ve come to the realization we are talking souls here.