I have been asked many times how I became a Christian. People usually aren't interested in a 'Biblical' answer. They just want to know what happened and how it happened. I ran across a story about my personal experience that I wrote many years ago. I had included it in the first 'chapbook' I put together in 2006, and called it 'A Moment in Time'.
Our experiences are unique to us. God knows us so intimately that He has designed the perfect scenario for each of His children. It is your very own experience and no one else will, or needs to duplicate it. I felt that in a moment, a heartbeat, the Holy Spirit settled within me. I can read passages in the Bible that tell me that 'I was chosen and predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will', (Eph. 1:11) but there came a day that I experienced this personally.
With God's favor shining on me, I will 'copy and paste' what I wrote many years ago.
A MOMENT IN TIME
It was a chilly, misty day in February of 1973. I stood at my kitchen sink in Whittier, CA. trying to open a jar of jelly. My children had been sick. I was concerned that they hadn’t been eating much and this morning I’d made one of their favorites, scrambled eggs and toast. They wouldn’t eat the toast without jelly.
While the children whined, I gently tapped the jar lid, then ran the jar under hot water, all to no avail; I just couldn’t pop the seal. I raised my eyes to look out the window above the sink. The kitchen faced the Whittier hills, but today it was so overcast, I couldn’t see much farther than the end of the street. Sandy, a teenage neighbor boy, was coming out of his house. He has big strong hands I thought; he surely could open this jar of jelly for me.
Something I had heard a few days prior immediately popped into my head. A young woman who was teaching a Bible study I had started to attend said that when we come to something in life that we can’t handle on our own, the first thing we do is look around for someone, anyone, who might be able to help us and only as a last resort, do we think to go to God and ask for His help. I believed in God, but this ‘personal relationship’ stuff through Christ was still a mystery to me.
That February morning, at age 31, I stepped out in faith and called on the God of the Universe to help me open a jar of jelly. I probably felt a little foolish; after all, God had important things to do. I remember saying something like, “Lord, if you can hear me, if you care, will you please open this jar of jelly for me?” Before I could put my hand back on the lid, it popped open! I felt a ‘warm glow’ throughout my body, and I knew at this very moment, that God had heard me, and He did care.
My whole body relaxed. I hadn’t known it was tense. I felt an overwhelming joy and sense of hope. In a blink of an eye, all had changed; something new was inside of me. Life has never been the same since that moment in time; neither has it been perfect, in a human sense. Developing a personal relationship with God is a process. He begins to change us in His time, in His way, and for His purpose and ultimately, for His glory.
What do you have in your life that you can’t do on your own? Call on the ‘name of the Lord’, and He will hear you!
Thank you Lord that you are a very personal God. You know our worldly stuggles and you have promised to come to our rescue.
