On one hand, my conversion to Christianity seemed so sudden, a fantastic answer to a quick, desperate prayer. But it was also the culmination of an unconscious search that had been going on in my life for quite some time, especially the year before.
“.. he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Hebrews 11:6
I’m convinced that when people say they are looking for love, joy, peace or truth, they are really looking for God without realizing it. They are trying to fill an empty vacuum in their lives. They may hate organized religion. They may have grown up in the church, bored to death with the services and long sermons, taking the beliefs for granted and refusing to question them until some college professor explained “what nonsense it was”. Or they may be understandably disenchanted with the many Christian hypocrites they had met. Despite such handicaps, these very same people are still looking for the real God. Indeed, one who grows up amongst the religious may be farther from God than the most cynical of atheists!
Since I did not grow up in the church, it was difficult to imagine Christianity playing much of a role in my life, even after my fantastic spiritual experience. In fact, even while Roger and Jim were talking to me before the big ephiphany, I threw out three test statements, just to see their reactions: I said, “Even if I were to buy into all of this and invite Jesus into my heart, there are three things you will never catch me doing. First of all, I will never set foot in a church because the day I do that, my dad will disown me. Second, I will not spend time reading the Bible because I’ve read parts of it before. I found it confusing and boring. And third, I will never, EVER do what you too are doing right now, going around telling people about Jesus. Because I believe people should keep their religion to themselves.”
They smiled and spoke some practical words, “Well, Bob, let’s not put the cart before the horse. Right now, just concentrate on meeting Jesus. Why not accept Him into your heart first and just see what happens?”
I saw what happened, all right. By the end of that week, I couldn’t put the Bible down, I couldn’t get enough of Christian fellowship and I talked so much about Jesus, I made a woman cry in one of my English classes. They weren’t tears of joy.either. She got upset in reaction to a new zealous guy who never seemed to shut up about his newfound discovery and had no idea how idiotic he was coming across. I had all the tact of a rhino trying to put out campfires. In fact, my English teacher made an unprecedented deal with me. No college student in history has ever been offered this deal. She promised that if I would quit coming to class for two whole weeks, she would not lower my grade!
But I wasn’t just talking about Jesus in class. I was talking about him everywhere, including, the campus halls and the out door quads. My voice tends to project much louder than I am aware (a trait I still have to this day) I would think I was merely talking to one person about Jesus. All at once I would look around and see a small crowd of individuals frozen dead in their tracks, listening.
Now, my parents weren’t too overwhelmed by this decision. When my dad discovered my conversion, I was disowned, I was pronounced dead, and I was asked to leave home.
All Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE New International Version NIV Copyright 1973, 1979, 1984 by International Bible Society Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.Note: On Dec, 3, 2007, The 700 Club broadcast a dramatic reenactment of this story. It was somewhat fictionalized but true to the spirit of what happened and the essential details of the incident.
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