A Christian man was getting a haircut and decided to witness to the barber. In an attempt to ease into a conversation about Jesus, the man asked the barber, “Do you believe in God?” Curtly, the barber answered, “No, I don’t.”

Now the Christian had a choice to make. He could drop the subject entirely or keep running with it at the possible expense of the barber exacting his revenge by way of the haircut. With his zeal for evangelism getting the better of him, he said to the barber, “If you wouldn’t mind telling me, why don’t you believe in God?” The barber said, “Oh, I don’t mind. All I have to do to know that God doesn’t exist is come to work each day. Barbers are like bartenders in that for some reason people want to tell us about their problems. Men sit in this chair all day long and tell me they hate their jobs, their marriages, and their lives in general. More than one man has even admitted to me that he has seriously considered committing suicide. So, if God existed, don’t you think He would do something about all that?”

The Christian was caught off guard by the barber’s seemingly logical reasoning, and the lack of a good comeback on his part created an awkward silence in the room. The barber took the silence to mean that he had won the debate, and so he cheerfully proceeded to give the Christian a fine haircut as the two of them filled in the silence with small talk about sports and the weather. Once the haircut was finished, the Christian paid the barber and sheepishly left the shop.

As the Christian stepped out onto the sidewalk, he prayed, asking God to give him an appropriate response to the barber’s atheism. Just then a hippie with unkept hair down to his shoulders walked past him. In a moment of divine inspiration, the Christian grabbed the hippie by the arm and walked him into the barber’s shop. Standing there with the shocked hippie, the Christian said to the barber, “You know what? Barbers don’t exist. If they did, this fellow wouldn’t have such long hair.” Agitated, the barber said, “Well, I exist, but I can’t cut someone’s hair who won’t come to me.” To that, the Christian replied, “Exactly! And God can’t help someone who won’t come to Him by coming to Jesus.”

“But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” (John 5:40, N.K.J.V.)

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37, N.K.J.V.)