My Spiritual Birthday
I grew up in a home of Christ Followers and went to church every Sunday. We had family devotions at dinner and went to summer camp at Forest Home as a family. My church family became a place of relatives, the blood ones all lived far away, full of “aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, etc”. So when I was 9 years old, I was sitting near my mom in church, which was NOT a common occurrence, and I checked the little box on the attendance card marked “member”. My mom whispered that I was not a member, so after church on the way home my folks explained that even though I had gone to that church as long as they had, I was not a member because I was not a Christian! What?!
The next night my dad, who was on the church visitation committee, called on me, even ringing the doorbell, and came in and shared with me what it meant to be a Christian and that night, I prayed to ask Jesus to come into my life, as I realized that my family’s faith needed to become my own and that God wanted a personal relationship with me!
When I told my mom that I had become a christian, she told me to write it in my diary. So in my best cursive writing, with my favorite purple pen, I wrote the words, “Jesus saved me”. The date was March 7, 1969.
Today I have been a Christ-follower for 47 years. As I reflect on my journey of following Jesus, I am struck by 2 things:
- The longer I live, the more I realize how desperately I need Him and I need His wisdom and vision to see my circumstances (no matter what they may be) through His perspective and faithful grace.
- I feel like the further up and the further in I go, the longer I follow after God, the less I know and the more vast the landscape of reality of a life of faith is. And perhaps that is what happens to continually keep me from moving to a state of contentment and self-reliance. Everything in my life is designed to increase my dependence on the Lord.
I am so thankful that out of the mass of humanity, God chose for me to live in the time and place I did; what a rare privilege and responsibility for which I am humbled.