A prelude to this story: A few days ago I was thinking "y'know, I can't wait for a JW to talk to me, it'll be a good opportunity to spread the true gospel to someone (despite the brain washing)". Now, onto the story

I was waiting for the train today, and a JW wanted to give me a copy of the "Awake" magazine for reading on the train. Conversation started off like:

JW: Would you like something to read on the train?
Me: What's it about
JW: [reading the cover] How to live longer
Me: Oh, no thanks, I'll be living eternally - I've found Jesus
JW: It might be an interesting read anyway
Me: How about you talk to me about it instead of giving me a book to read?

So he leans agains the rail thingy with me and we discussed Jesus. He asked me if I thought Jesus was God, and I replied yes, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit, so he pulled out his bible (and I think it caught him off guard a bit when I pulled mine out too, ah the simple joys of having a small bible). He quoted colossians:

Colossians 1:15: The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation

Which he reasoned that since He was born, He must have had a creator who is God. I said that's flawed reasoning, then said what I realised myself was also flawed reasoning (that it said "over all creation" not "of all creation" - yeah, it was odd...), and then went on to the more doctrinely sound reasoning that Jesus is the image of God, which means He is also God. Much in the same way that my physical appearence is the image of myself, and my soul is also myself - two parts of the one me. I think he misunderstood that and said that we're different people (me and him...)

Now I was having a major mind blank, which was unfortunate timing, and with a quick prayer, a verse jumped into my head.

John 1:1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

I asked him who or what the Word was, and he answered correctly, Jesus. I focused on the last part - the Word was God, he focused on the middle part - the Word was with God. I tried to point out that both can be happening at the same time, which I found obvious, but he couldn't get his head around easily, and went somewhere else in the bible.

I can't remember exactly where he went, but it was a part where either Jesus said the Father sent him, or Paul said the Father sent Jesus, and went on to say that if He was sent, someone else must have done the sending. I tried to explain a bit of the trinity to him, and said that although Jesus is not the Father, the father is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not Jesus, but they are all God. Much like the wikipedia picture. I wasn't explaining well, unfortunately, and I had completely run dry on other Bible references to back myself up.

But anyway, in a short amount of time my train came, I asked if he was catching it and wanted to get on, and he said he's not catching that train, and that was the end of that pretty much. I told him I'd be praying for him (which I have been)

Once the train started going, I got a whole lot of ideas of places I could have went, and kicked myself for not remembering them. The obvious one was Jesus claimed it a few times, most notably when He was about to be crucified. Also, I could have angled it "Who can forgive sins? God...*flick to OT*. Who did forgive sins? Jesus. *flick to NT*".

But I didn't think of any of these while I was talking to him, despite praying earnestly for some help there. So two questions:
1) How do you think of on-the-spot scriptural evidence for these kinds of debates? I usually remember the general theme, and google it
2) Why weren't my prayers answered straight away? It seems they would have been more useful then, than when I was on the train on my own.