Every Christian has a story of how they came to Christ. The blind man that we read about in the new testament told his story” All I know is that once I was blind, but now I see.” Your story is different from my story, even if you were a child you can still remember what it was like to give yourself to Christ.
For me my story is always the same, I chased a girl into a Church and God caught me. I was not looking for God; God was the last thing that I wanted. To tell the truth I only went to shut her up. “I want you to come to church with me.” “Why won’t you come to church with me?” “It’s only an hour.” “Alright already, I’ll go!”
That first service was not too bad I guess. Dr. Lee was preaching that day and to my ear he was a pretty good speaker. He punctuated his one point per line. He kept good eye contact with the audience. It was a good speech even if I didn’t know what he was talking about. Shoot, if this was all there was to it I could handle going every once in a while. After all it kept her off my back, she wasn’t asking me to stop drinking and we could keep on fooling around. My life did not have to change that much. All it cost me was an hour a week and I was nursing a hangover through most of it anyway.
I guess it was a few weeks before anything started happening. By then we were going to her mother’s Sunday school class with her. Yes she had upped the ante on me, we were going two hours a week but it was mostly pleasant, except every one of those people wanted to convert the poor little lost boy. Help came from an unlikely source. The Sunday school teacher was John Pirtle. He always seemed to know when I was being pursued by another one of those elderly would be evangelists. He would swoop in and rescue me. He became a pretty good friend of mine.
Something was starting to happen though. Little by little I started to have questions. Things were happening, things that I didn’t have an answer for. I felt drawn but I did not know towards what. All I knew was that I had to talk to somebody. Week after week I ended Sunday school with the conviction that I had to talk to John. “I have to talk to John; I’ve got to talk to John! I don’t know what’s going on but I have to talk to John!” It did not take long before my girlfriend got tired of the incessant chant. “Do you want me to ask John for his number for you?” “Huh?” “That would be a great idea!” We found out later that at the same time she was asking me, John was across the class room asking her Mother if it was ok for him to call me.
It took me two days to get up the nerve to call him but that nagging sensation remained. I did not even let him talk, as soon as he got on the phone I blurted out, “John, I got all of these questions and I don’t know what’s going on.” John waited patiently while I peeled off question after question. At the end I asked,” So do you have any answers?” John said that he thought that he did have an answer. John led me down the Roman Road of Salvation. After he finished he asked, “Did that answer your questions?” “Yes,” I replied almost inaudibly. But you know what? He did not answer a single one of my questions. But he did answer a question I did not realize I needed to ask and that one question answered everything.
John asked me if I wanted for him to pray with me to receive Christ. My heart was still full of pride and I answered that I would do it on my own. My mother had taught us how to pray as children so that night I prayed the only way that I knew how. I lowered myself at the side of my bed; hands steepled tucked under the point of my chin and prayed one of the most pitiful prayers that I have ever prayed in my life. You know what? As bad as that prayer was, God still accepted it and me. He paid my debt and welcomed me home.
In most families there is a tradition of telling the story of how our parents first met. At other times we can bore our families and colleagues to death over the details of our kid’s first steps, first words, and first recitals. The one story that we need to tell the most is the story of how we came to know Christ. That one story is the one that we need to share with anyone who will listen, anyone who needs to know Jesus Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment