My Testimony

Let me start by saying I was always a good kid – not that I didn’t do anything wrong but I generally had no malice toward anyone and was not normally inclined to be dishonest. I did have a tendency to run away though - not to get away from home but to go adventuring. In fact, the worst thing that I can remember doing as a kid was squirting mustard all over the white leather seat of a Cadillac convertible when I was a teenager. No reason to do it, just a spur of the moment thoughtlessness that I have regretted ever since. I didn’t have the courage at the time I did it to confess to the person and take my lumps. In fact, I wasn’t even sure where we were when I did it – I wasn’t paying any attention to where we were – so even if I had managed to work up the courage, I wouldn’t have known where to go to confess.

I had attended church off and on while I was growing up – Baptist church with my grandmother, Episcopalian when I lived with an aunt and uncle for 7 years, and occasionally Methodist when I was an adult. I think I have always believed that there was a God and that He had created the universe and everything in it but I was not as certain that He cared about me or even knew about me. God was more like a distant, remote being than a personal God. Jesus was pretty much just a good guy in my mind.

Eileen was a Christian when we got married but I wasn’t. Had someone asked me, I would have said that I was of course a Christian – I believed in God and I had certainly heard of Jesus. Because Eileen was a Christian and wanted to go to church, I was willing to go with her just to please her plus I figured it would do the kids good. I could tolerate it plus since we went to Baptist churches, there was always good food involved.

My least favorite time of church, however, was the “invitation”. I could not stand to sing 6 or 7 verses of a song while waiting for someone to “accept Christ”. In fact, I was pretty certain that there were people designated to go down front if there weren’t any real suckers in the crowd that day. I figured they were planted there to break the ice and entice folks to “walk the aisle” – or, as I preferred to think of it – to “walk the plank”. It was always an uncomfortable time for me but only because I was anxious to be done with church.

One Sunday, we were on about the 4th verse of the invitational song and I distinctly remember wondering how much longer we would be singing and whether or not I could deal with it. I was bored to tears.

Out of nowhere, with no reason that I could think of, I turned to Eileen and asked her if she would go down front with me. I’m not sure who was more surprised – she or me. Fortunately, she recovered before I did and quickly agreed to go with me.

As we moved out to the aisle, I had no idea why I was going down front – it was certainly not my idea. As we started down the aisle, a truly strange thing happened to me – I was 2 people at the same time. There was the me that was walking down the aisle and there was a me that was watching me from behind. The me that was watching from behind was trying to convince the me in front that I was making a huge mistake; that it was all foolishness and there was no such thing as a personal relationship with Christ. I would have to be as dull and as mindless as I thought all the other so-called Christians were. For no reason that I know of, I ignored the second me and continued down the aisle and as soon as I told the pastor that I wanted to accept Christ, the second me disappeared.

I have since heard hundreds of testimonies about people having a “road to Damascus” sort of conversion, or being in such pain and despair that Christ was the only way out, or any number of reasons that they just had to reach out to God and beg for mercy. I, to my knowledge, had no such reason. Like I said, I was a good kid. I was a good adult. I was kind, I was honest and I was generous. I had good kids and a good wife. I had a good job that I enjoyed. I did not know of any reason I had that would cause me to reach out to God.

So why did I ask Eileen to walk down front with me? I don’t know for sure, but I am pretty well convinced that for some reason God did not want to wait on me any longer to make up my mind about Him. Perhaps He knew that if I had to be brought down to my knees in order to realize my desperate need for Him, I might in stubbornness decide to ignore Him. I have, after all, been known to cut off my nose to spite my face – it is not one of my more desirable traits but it is part of who I am.

Like so many new Christians, I just knew that since I had accepted Christ as my savior all my troubles were over. I wish I could say that is exactly how it worked out but I can’t. It has taken some years but I now understand that Satan works hard to destroy the faith of new Christians so that their eagerness and excitement will be tamped down and they will not be good witnesses for Christ. If a new Christian is having pain and issues, how likely is it that he or she will work to bring others into the kingdom? Satan nearly got me and, in fact, he did drag me through a dry, terrible desert in my relationship with God. He nearly destroyed my marriage. He set me up for a horrible relationship in a church that I felt truly invested in. For a time, he managed to convince me that joy in Christ is not really possible.

Over the years since my acceptance of Christ, I have on occasion been uncomfortable in my relationship with God but I don’t think I have doubted His concern over me or His influence in my life. I have been rebellious and I am so grateful that He forgives me even of that rebellion. I have allowed Satan to deceive me and yet God maintained His protection of me and His love for me.

I can truly say that my life has been infinitely better with Christ. I can say with certainty that God loves me. I can attest to the power of God through prayer. I have witnessed miracles. I have felt the spirit of God directing me to pray specifically for people that I had no desire to pray for. I have laid hands on those people and prayed God’s blessing on them because He said to. I continue to be amazed at God’s goodness and His mercies. I am grateful to be able to claim that I am His even though I do not deserve to be.