Coming to Christ
It is always difficult to know where to start when describing one's conversion.
In retrospect, the whole of life seems to have led up to that one point, and
life afterwards seems to have flowed from that point. (And yet, so many of the
chains and snares that took hold in the "before time"
seem to affect us for years afterwards, that one sometimes is forced to wonder
what really changed.)
There were signposts in my early years that I would want to know God. Being
sent to Sunday school was a joy, not a burden. When other people couldn't
remember the stories of Elijah and Elisha, I was always keen to show the teacher
that I had remembered the lesson. I wanted to be good. Then, as a boy of 9 or
10, I was getting too old for Sunday School, and another church down the road
were looking for choristers. For this we would be paid!
The church was weird, the incense stank, the robes were old and moth-eaten, Mass
was sung in Latin, and the sermons were v. boring. But I still liked putting
all my skill into singing. (Years later I went back and for the first time,
recognised the signs of the zodiac on the ceiling...that really was one weird
church!) But, off in the corner of the church was a white marble statue of
Jesus, with red paint in the holes in his hands. Some Sundays, after the
service, I would go and look at the statue, and wonder why He did it.
When my voice broke, I stopped going at all.
Being a rather studious nerd, bullied at school, and too keen on being neat and
right and sucking up to teachers, I turned to Sci-fi and fantasy as an escape.
Fantasy was to become a massive snare for me. The ability to constructively
engage with reality was eroded. Inner voices became louder than outer ones. I
related to projections of people, rather than actual
people. I discovered that whatever I tried to do never came out the way I
wanted it. Be it writing, drawing, playing sport or anything else. A massive
frustration built up inside, feeling that "if only..." one could find the key,
life would match up to expectations.
Into the void of that frustration, I got sucked into believing in "mind over
matter". I read about and experimented with all kinds of things, meditation,
talismans, and worse (of which I am too ashamed to write). But one thing, more
than any other, led me to Christ.
Logically, I reckoned mind over matter should have worked. Quantum theory
indicates that all outcomes of any interaction are possible, it only takes a
"catalyst" to bend things. That I couldn't levitate a hair had to mean that
someone else's mind was involved, which was more powerful than mine. In my
reading, I began to realise that the greater part of any arcane activity has to
do with setting up protection from the invisible, and incredibly powerful dark
beings that are being asked to change reality on our behalf.
Having been knocked around at school, it crossed my mind that these
"protections" that people spend so much time and care setting up might be a
complete sham. That there might be no protection at all, and it might all be a
game of "bully the mortal" while the "spirits" laughed behind their hands.
I was 16 years old, at a Saturday music school one morning, and I expressed this
fear to a girl I was hoping to ask out. (?!?) She turned round and asked me to
go to church with her that Sunday. Seemed like a good deal to me!
Well, I went, and it turned out to be the little Baptist church where I had been
to Sunday School. I did not expect them to have any answers for my questions,
but hung around in the youth group afterwards, and badgered folks a bit. They
then gave me a booklet called "Journey into Life" by Norman Warren. This,
simplistic though it is, explained the gospel in terms that I
could understand, but at that time could not appreciate the urgency, or the
value of the prayer in the back.
Over the next few weeks, I went along every Sunday evening, enjoying the
singing, and spent a few hours reading the Gospels. From my "spiritual
questioning", I was perfectly happy with the idea that Jesus could walk through
walls, feed five thousand people, or turn water into wine. What was most
surprising that alone, of all the "entities" that I had read about, Jesus seemed
to be ON OUR SIDE. So, taking my fear, and my desire for power I decided to try
a prayer, "Jesus, if you are who they say you are, I want you to be on my
side". Needless to say, nothing apparently took place.
A few days later, however, I was due to go round to my girlfriend's house, and
decided that rather than cycle the three miles, and arrive disheveled and late,
I would "borrow" my brother's motorbike, and turn up looking "cool".
Being under age, with no license or
insurance, and never having ridden the thing before, it just felt like a big
adventure. I kept ignoring the little voice that was telling me not to, and
went ahead. Said girlfriend was not as impressed as I had hoped, we spent the
evening playing cards or talking or watching TV (I forget now). On the way
home, I stopped off at another friend's house, a lovely family with two
daughters, and whose parents were far more relaxed about life than mine were. I
got on really well with those grown-ups and had a great deal of respect for
them. The last thing I expected was to get a strip torn off me by the Dad.
In no uncertain terms, this "surrogate Dad" told me what my selfishness,
lawbreaking, stupidity, and trying to look cool was going to cost me if I got
caught.
Wham...in came that flood of conscience that I had been ignoring. I crawled
home, sick to my stomach, and hid in my bedroom with my whole body feeling like
I had been through the wringer. And guess what, I picked up that little booklet
again. The one that said that our selfishness, our desire to have what we want,
in short, our SIN was what had ruined our relationship with God, and if left
unchecked, would spoil our lives forever. It told how we are hopelessly lost if
we try to be our own master. The simple message showed how the death of Jesus
bought forgiveness for the guilt and shame that we all carry, and how the
Lordship of Jesus would straighten out our lives and keep us clean.
I got on my knees. It wasn't just words on a page any more. It wasn't just
curiosity. It wasn't even that I wanted Jesus on my side. Somehow He had
allowed me to discover that I needed Him, as Lord and Saviour. Well, I guess I
got my first ever prayer answered, but boy, was it on His terms, and not on
mine! So I read through the prayer at the end of the book, and knew that
Christianity was true, and that I needed it. I was "converted".
The following Sunday evening was communion. I took the bread and wine with a
clear and certain knowledge of what Jesus' sacrifice meant to me. The youth
group leaders came over afterwards to warn me about unbelievers taking
communion, so I grinned and explained what had happened during the week. :)
Looking back over the years, and with a great deal more "understanding", I am
consistently amazed at how God engineered the whole process, that I might
"believe, repent, and confess" in such a short time.
(But I never did get to go out with the girl who invited me back to church.)
