October 07, 2011
Close Encounters
As I interview people I often question them about any ah-ha moments
they might have had with the Lord. I think we can all relate to personal
testimonies, but they are so much more powerful when we actually know the
people who’ve had the experience. During Bible study discussion Suzie
confessed, “I sometimes expect more from
the Lord. I don’t know what, maybe angels, trumpets…feathers”. Mel agreed
saying that when he accepted the Lord as his personal Savior it was a grey
January day and at that moment in time his rebirth was disappointingly unspectacular.
Chiming in on the conversation Gary quipped, “Well at least you weren’t blinded like Saul!”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I was eight years old, doing what all boys do, doing what Dad had told me not to do, throwing my baseball on the roof and catching it on the fall. I didn’t love doing this because it was good practice, I loved doing it because it set my body into a self-maintaining motion while my mind pondered stuff. I remember clearly what was percolating in my head that day: "Everything shows God is a fact." OK. I admit it wasn’t a very big thought. But I didn'd have much percolation room, either.
-----In the Summer of my fifteenth year, my white-knuckled hands gripped the back of the pew in front of me during the end of an evening revival meeting. I had sat a bit towards the front of the sanctuary, so my hair was still blown back from the winds of Lloyd McMillan’s sermon. Again, circling my tiny mind, around, and around, and around was, “You know He’s real, idiot! You gotta do this sometime.” But now the thought's engine had a caboose: “Don’t think about it, just turn loose of the pew and go do whatcha know’s right.” I saw this little train of thought pass behind my eyes at least half-a-dozen times when somehow I found myself standing in front of Lloyd saying my “I does” to the Lord.
-----Everybody fawned over that for a few days. And I was happy, too, not that I had done it, but that somehow I had gotten it over with. I’d known He was true. I’d known I needed Him. I just hadn’t known how I was going to muster the strength to make the decision, or why such a decision should even need strength mustered.
-----If I had then started reading the Bible, maybe it wouldn’t have been until I was going on eighteen before I started allowing that decision to effect more than just my inward thoughts. A lot of High School kids I related to began doing some “Jesus thing” at a local Pentecostal Church. So, with a bah, bah, bah, I followed. I never was proud of being a bit compliant, but I knew compliance had an important place amongst my non-conformist ways. Within six months I had read the Bible through and had found a couple places in it I liked most and was really kind of off and running on a more serious life, if not being a bit deeper in confusion.
-----It all seems rather mundane to me, now. Yet, I never try to hold suspect brothers and sisters who tell of areal-bomb experiences in the Lord. After all, there is a lot of fireworks in the Bible. But a thinking mind just can’t help but notice the Bible's skyrockets, areal-bombs, and flowing fountains involved embedding the knowledge of God within human history. They kind of lit up the truth of the Lord while He taught man who He was. Now that He’s shown Himself and His Word‘s truth, simple minds can proceed to Him by reading it and doing honest thinking.
-----But honest minds also know God’s graciousness. Some folks aren’t real big on small thoughts rattling around little heads. Instead, they kind of need a bottle rocket or a couple firecrackers to move their decisions on down the line. Knowing God’s love, I don’t doubt He saved a few bags of bottle rockets and firecrackers for lighting up now and then.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Post a Comment