My story begins with an understanding that the details involving my transformation into a believer of The Bible and Jesus Christ as the Son of God my savior are too many to mention and yet too significant to leave out. I will therefore try to highlight those events that are most important.
Although I grew up in what most people would consider a wonderful home it did not include church or religion. This of course was fine for me as a boy. I had no interest in dressing up and sitting still while being bored with talk about being good. This of course doesn’t mean I didn’t need it, just that I much preferred playing and sleeping in.
Fast forwarding to my high school years I took a sharp turn for the worse. My life became focused on one thought, and that was to party and get high. I lost all interest in the future and making anything out of my life.
Over the next 6 or 7 years my life became an unending series of disaster, calamity and foolishness. There were arrests for petty and major things. The most major being that of DUI at the age of 16 after driving my 66 Pontiac through a neighborhood house. In my drunken state of mind I hoped to hide the fact that I had been drinking by using the bathroom to brush my teeth while moms and kids raced around in panic and chaos from the brownie meeting being held at the house. Obviously, this didn’t work. I went straight to jail not passing go or collecting $200.00. Not only was my drinking way out of control, but drug use was heavy also. There was even a period of time in which I engaged in the intravenous use of cocaine. I could also have been arrested for many things on many occasions and just didn’t get caught. This of course was all in the name of fun.
Not really realizing it at the time I nevertheless had a serious life hangover. I was feeling sick inside and quite lost without any direction or purpose for life. I felt very hollow and empty. Unfortunately for me I had no idea of how to get help, and the idea of religion never crossed my mind. Had someone suggested that idea I have no doubt that I would have quickly rejected the notion anyway. My emptiness however did motivate me to find relief. I found a girl friend that was positive about life and was focused on the future. I also got a great job in the construction industry that offered great hope of a secure income. But the sin that I once controlled was now controlling me. I didn’t have the power to change my life to meet the common sense vision of my girl friend, and when she realized I wasn’t changing she left me. I was able to keep my job however, but I squandered my money on partying and drugs and made no progress in that direction either. My hope for turning my life around was all but lost. I just had no idea of how to change my life.
I was now living out my life in a new yet very uncomfortable dimension. Everything I did for years and found to be fun and entertaining had lost its ability to make and keep me happy. I was restless. I found myself mildly depressed and fearful. I wasn’t really conscious of it but I lived under a cloud of impending doom. I now understand that to be God’s conviction. Condemnation was hanging over my head as a guilty sinner even though I had no Biblical knowledge or understanding of what it was, why it was, or how to get rid of it.
It was at this point in time that God could begin to get my attention. One Monday night after work and dinner I grabbed a beer, smoked a joint and turned on the tube waiting for the Monday Night Football game to come on. Prior to the broadcast was a TV program called That’s Incredible. That night’s show covered the lives of people who had died and were clinically dead for a short time.
The experiences shared by the first people interviewed were very similar. They shared of finding themselves in beautiful and peaceful places. They often described great open fields and of not feeling confined by space, just a sense of unlimited freedom. They also always described it as very light or bright. There was also an incredible sense of well-being.
Then the last person on the show shared his experience. His experience seemed to completely contradict all of the previous experiences. He described traveling through a dark tunnel. Upon arriving at a stopping point he described being in a confined place even though it was totally dark and he could not see any walls. He somehow nevertheless knew he could not leave that place. He also stated that he was aware of the fact that there were two presences coming toward and for him although again he could not see them. He also knew who they were and what their mission was. He claimed that they were death angels and they were coming to take him to hell.
Some very profound things occurred to me at this point in time. The first was the thought of why would anyone share such a thing on national TV. My reasoning at this point in time of course was that only really evil people would go to hell, therefore you must have been a really evil person, and you just told the whole world. The second thing was how candid and believable the man was when he told the story. It was as though he was reliving the event as he shared it. It was obvious to me at that point that whether it was true or not, real or fiction, he really believed it. You could see it in his face and eyes.
Well, at this point in the story the man found himself traveling back through the tunnel and back into the hospital room. He concluded his story by saying; and I don’t drink no more, or smoke no more and other similar statements that I don’t accurately remember. I think at that time I was so blown out of the water that I could not concentrate on what he was saying. An odd thing to me about his confession is that I have no recollection of his ever mentioning God or the Bible or anything about religion.
Four days later it was Friday night and time to escape the sense of oppression over me and feel alive. It was life I was looking for. Nothing I did however was life giving, it was all a dead end leaving me in a deeper state of oppression. My desperation nevertheless as all desperation does open doors that would otherwise never open. The greater our desperation the more possibilities we consider. These thoughts of course only existed in my sub-conscience mind. I never processed or analyzed any of what I’m now sharing. This is all 20/20 hindsight.
So I grabbed a 12 pack of Bud, caught a bus and then a train to the burbs where I grew up to spend another weekend. I drank half of the beer on the trip out and was picked up at the train by one of my friends. We went back to his house before heading out for the night.
But God, unbeknownst to me, had strategically placed someone in that home so that on that night he could direct me to Jesus Christ as my Savior. This someone was a former party friend who had become a Christian and was living as a renter in my friend’s mother’s home where we were. Although once very close friends, we didn’t talk much now due to the fact that he “had religion” and didn’t party anymore.
Tonight however was a different story. Monday’s program quickly became the topic of discussion. As this friend shared different scriptures regarding heaven and hell from the Bible he could see that I was in earnest about what he was sharing. He then asked me the simple question of “would you like to go to heaven when you die?” At this point I jumped at the opportunity and asked what I needed to do. My friend asked if I would be willing to pray with him. I said that I was willing but did not know how to pray or what to say for that matter. He then led me through a prayer that was very simple. I don’t really remember the words. What I do remember is that I meant what I said even though I had no real idea of what I was doing. Nor did I have any idea of what it would lead to. What I do remember is having an instantaneous sense of joy and peace after praying that prayer. It was the “life” I had been looking for but could not experience.
Although there was a great need for outward changes in my life that would require time I was instantly changed on the inside. As in the song Amazing Grace I once was lost but now was found, was blind but now I saw. My life forever changed from that moment on and nothing could ever persuade me that the Bible is not the absolute truth and revelation of God. Truly Jesus came to “seek and save the lost” as he said. I am just one of millions that have experienced this amazing grace and you can too.
