In truth, the only thing making one's conversion difficult is oneself - one's heart.
The Lord says in Exodus 7:3:
"But I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt."
At first glance, this verse implies that the Lord intentionally denied Pharaoh of the ability to hear and embrace the word of God, when in fact, Pharaoh's heart was hardened because he didn't like what he heard. Technically, the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart but only because it was the Lord speaking and Pharaoh chose not to listen. Frequently words of admonishment will fall on deaf ears.
In Matthew 13:13-15, the Lord tells us:
"This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.' In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'"
The Lord does not harden our hearts, we harden them as we push ourselves away from the love of the Lord - frequently without even realizing it.
Matthew 13 tells the Parable of the Sower. In verses 18 through 23 specifically, Jesus gives a powerful outline of how the seed of Christianity is planted in witnessing: how fertile your heart is at the time will determine when you accept Christ into the richest soils of your soul.
"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:
When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.
The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.
The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."
I had a very little resistance to Kate when she approached me because she had the courtesy to really listen to me and get to know me better than many have in a very long time. This gave her a huge advantage over others who had tried. I realized that Kate had something in her faith in God and Christ which could, finally, calm me that all the other trappings of our lives had failed to offer and give me the moral and spiritual center for which I had craved and longed for years. This was kind of startling to me at the time. Previously when approached by others about the same subject I reacted much diffrently.
At the moment she asked me via IM "Do you have a Bible?", I found myself hearing the faintest whisper in my ear and feeling calm spread over my frustrations long enough to type - "Yes, I have my mothers bible at home.. Why?" This was a very uncharacteristic answer for me - just about anyone I know would have bet that I would have answered anything but that way... She then suggested that I just take a quiet moment to find a few passages in it and see if they rang true to me and helped give me comfort or guidance...
They did, though Kate knew that they would because she knew that the Holy Spirit would provide for me at that moment.
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