Imagine a man coming to your door. You’ve met him once, he’s a friend of a friend, and he’s got important paperwork in his possession that someone’s taken from you. You invite him in as it’s a Friday night anyway and you have nothing better to do. Now imagine that he begins telling you about a Jesus, this Jesus you don’t know much about. It’s in such a non-confrontative and curious way that He talks about Jesus, so you don’t shut him down as you did not more than three months ago. Rather, you lean in to listen.
Now imagine a conversation that lasts for hours and someone who asks you questions, then responds to the answers still inside your head that you haven’t yet given a voice to. Imagine also, he tells things about you that only God could know. He’s got your attention.
He tells you now to pick up that Bible you used to read as a teen (but as you mostly read from the book of revelation and without revelation it terrified you, so you stopped reading). He gives you selected chapters of the New Testament for you to read, and while you read he sits quietly. When you finish reading he makes comments you have no understanding of (about the keys of David) and questions you don’t have the answers to (where is your altar, where is your prayer altar?) This cycle repeat itself throughout the course of the evening.
Now imagine the unthinkable. At 11PM this man leaves your home without leading you in a prayer of salvation, without leading you to Jesus. You’re upset. Extremely upset. You broadcast some mean message to him from inside your head and from across the parking lot, for you’ve followed him outside. And although the message was never spoken, he hears it and responds accordingly, then drives off.
You’re irritated. How could this man leave in the midst of such personal turmoil and unsettledness and agitation? These things ought not to be!!!
But here’s what this man did do. He left me with a gift. A gift that would lead to the ultimate Gift. For he left me with a keen awareness that I was not the “pretty good person” I thought I was (oh how spiritually blind I was, comparing myself to IV drug users and such as my plumb line) but he left me with the hammering truth that I was a sinner in need of salvation. Like, right now! I knew I wanted, and more importantly, needed to be become a Christian, but how? And how could he leave me in such a state?!
After he left I did the only thing I knew to do. I went back to that Bible and I read through the night. I don’t know how much of the New Testament I read, but I read with an insatiable hunger, for I knew this book contained the answer. I knew I needed to pray, but I didn’t know how to pray. And in the morning I drove to my mom’s to retrieve the large family Bible I knew contained a “dictionary” in the back. When I returned I looked up every verse on prayer and all the other strange things he had mentioned and I read and I read and I read throughout the day and into the night, stopping to take breaks to for care for my baby daughter and to eat.
And after 11pm that Saturday night, after I had put my daughter to bed, I made the decision I knew enough to pray and was ready to pray to become a Christian. I took everything literally. I went into my bedroom, into my closet, and I knelt on my knees and covered my head with the only thing I had – a red bandana (God knew my heart). And thinking I needed to confess every. single. sin. to become a Christian, I was led to use the Ten Commandments as my guide, to guide me through all the sins I would need to repent from, for the list was long. For in deed I had been a good student of the world.
And so I began working down the list, often going back up the list as another remembrance came to mind, confessing that missed sin then moving on again. And two things happened in the midst of this process. First, I didn’t just experience God’s forgiveness; it was as if I was having an encounter with forgiveness as a real and tangible substance. And as I encountered this profound forgiveness for all my sins, I began extending forgiveness to all those who had trespassed against me. It was if I had entered a supernatural flow of simultaneously receiving and releasing forgiveness. This itself took some time. Also, the more I confessed my sins, the more my heart broke for what a sinful life I had lived and how I had broken all of God’s commandments. I was fully aware for the first time in my life of the extent and the ugliness of my sins. I don’t know when the tears began or how long they lasted. I only know they flowed as strong as my words, for my sins were many.
And then the moment came. I knew I was finished. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. I wiped away my tears, stood up, looked up, and declared aloud – operating in what I believe was my first official instance of the gift of faith (apart from saving faith) – “God, I’m ready for whatever you would have for me.” Little did I know what was set in motion with those words and how quickly it would begin.
But what I knew was that it was 5:30 am Sunday morning because I happened to glance at the clock. I then decided it would be a good idea to lie down with my baby daughter and get a couple of hours rest before she woke up (as the next day I’d be getting on a bus to go cross-country to visit her father). So my head hit the pillow and I closed my eyes. And immediately, the brightest flash of light flashed in my room. I could see it with my eyes closed and I think it was a good thing my eyes were closed. It was the most brilliant blinding flash of white light I had ever seen. Then it flashed a second time. And without another second’s passing a jolt of electricity entered my body through the tips of my toes and coursed upward to my head. And in that moment, for it all happened in a moment, my first thought formed, “What is this?” And I was answered with an audible voice, gentle yet authoritative, “I am cleansing you of your sins.” That was it. One simple sentence. And this is how I encountered Jesus as the Light of the World. And I suppose it’s why that man didn’t lead me in a sinner’s prayer.
And it’s why I’m compelled to preach, publish, and proclaim the goodness of God and His saving grace, and to see His Kingdom expanded. One prayer at a time, one person at at time, and one story at a time, if that’s what it takes and for as long as it takes. (I go to Texas in April and I have an opportunity to go to Kenya in July!)
