Deny Thy Father and Refuse His Name???

What would you do if someone you knew, someone you would say is a close friend, asked you to not speak about God or anything spiritual around them? This is what happened to me just a few evenings ago.

Allow me to paint you the picture....His name is Mikey, I have known him for probably 3 years and briefly dated him for probably 2 or 3 weeks in the beginning after we met until we decided that we were better off as friends, which I have always been fine with because of reasons that will become apparent later on in this post. Well, ever since then whenever I talk to him which is about every 2 weeks to 2 months or so, with the exception of when I was with Shawn, Mikey becomes like a "yo-yo" not knowing what he wants from one moment to the next, saying he wants to see where things can go with us. I being the one not holding my breath for it to ever happen, but has always said, "If we are ever going to be more than friends, it is meant to be, it would be."

Ok, so just a few evenings ago, I was talking to Mikey and he goes into his "yo-yo" mode and says he would like to see where things can go with us. At the moment he gives me this line yet again, I am working on yet another school assignment so I am kind of paying attention to him and kind of not. Then that is when he says something that surprised me and yet it didn't. It surprised me because he knows me, he knows who I am and, what he asked me should have never been even a thought to cross his mind. It didn't surprise me because he himself does not believe in God and wants nothing to do with spiritual or as he put it, "religious things".

At this point, I literally stopped what I was doing and just stared at the words he had just written to me. I read and re-read these words at least 3 times, I wanted to make sure that I did in fact read it correctly and didn't misunderstand anything. He said, *this is not exact*, "I would like to try us again, only I don't want you to talk about God or anything religious around me." At first I wasn't sure what to say to him and when I did, I don't believe I gave the right response. It wasn't until last night that I finally did give him the words that I should have spoken to him the moment he wrote those words to me. I told him, "I feel like you are asking me to deny my Father in Heaven and refuse His Name." I told him for him to ask me to not speak of God or anything of that nature, I felt like he was asking me to not be me, that God is a part of me and I can't deny Him or myself."

It got to a point in the conversation where I believe he understood what I was telling him and that I would rather just be his friend but that he needs to accept me for me, as I accept him even if I don't agree with him not believing in God or the bible.

PS: I told him a while ago, I would be praying for him. He said, do what I want but it won't work, he will never believe in God. I guess I need to pray harder.