I stood there in the pews, head bowed – not in prayer, but in anguish. I was standing, pensively, in a small little southern Baptist church with a new young preacher, who was on fire for the Gospel, and laying out his alter call. But I wouldn’t budge. Stubborn little prideful mule I was at the age of 14 or so. Yes – there were many things that pride would not permit. Besides all of which, the anger over my parent’s dissolving marriage had settled into me like some sort of alien sickness. And despite their lip service to Jesus, I could scarcely recall a time when I had been taken to any church as a small child. Of course our lovely home was cluttered with little religious plaques and symbols, along with the occasional and woefully ignorant, unbiblical opinions that my parents had tossed around about the Christ in front of me…but when such an atmosphere is also coupled with fury, profanities, pornography, substance abuse and a near total lack of love for one another…well, it can make a child quite jaded about the existence and involvement of any god – much less, the only real One.
And so, there I was – standing solemn in the pews. Why? I asked unconsciously with every refusal to move, why were my parents suffering – why was I? Sure my grandmother had once sat me on her knee, telling me stories of how this Messiah had turned the water into wine, how He had raised the dead, and how He had died Himself for the sins of all the world. So if He was so amazingly capable, why was there such misery, not just in my own little life, but in the whole world at large? Frankly, in my estimation at the time, if He existed at all then He must be quite the divine Jerk for allowing it.
No, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t believe in God, as it was the fact that I was mad at Him.
Then breaking into my wall of resistance, the pastor added suddenly…but softly, “I feel the person whom the LORD is calling today is a youth.”
My heart quickened.
Really, Padre? I remember thinking, Well then – male or female? You’ll have to be more specific than that if you expect ME to humiliate myself!
Clearly, I wasn’t into parlor tricks and psycho babble. This gentleman was going to have to do better than that if he expected me to embarrass myself in front of all these people.
Eventually, they closed the service. And a myriad of mixed emotions hit me. At first I was relieved. After all, I was off the hook now. But soon that relief caved into a sinking feeling that I had forsaken something, or Someone, far greater than I could ever imagine; Someone I didn’t even know or understand…at least, not yet.
Next week, God. I bargained with the Almighty. I’ll go down during next week’s alter call.
But that is when I learned something about this Yahweh. And that is that He would not be “put off.”
As I waited on the porch steps of the church for my brother and new sister-in-law to get their vehicle, I heard my name being called. I turned and – to my horror – it was the pastor himself. I dreaded any interaction with him. I suddenly felt like some undesirable vagrant who was caught trespassing on a rich man’s property, like I didn’t belong – or so I was led to believe, momentarily. Fearing reproach and certain judgment, I somehow summoned the courage to look this man in the eye.
And that’s when I was quite surprised. His eyes were not cold and distant or disapproving – but bright and loving. He did not sneer at me for being such a lowly sinner, but smiled such a welcoming smile that I was captivated, drunk in the love that seem to exude from him so effortlessly. Whatever was flowing out of this man who grinned affectionately at me, all I knew at the time was that I flatly didn’t deserve it.
And yet there it was: Grace. Mercy. Love.
He said, “Leanne…I felt like you were the person the LORD was calling today. And I just felt that He wanted me to give you this.”
It was the New Testament.
I don’t even remember what, if anything, I said in response. My jaw had dropped, spiritually. Male or female..? I had challenged this man. Umm…yea.
One thing was for certain. This guy didn’t play. I wasn’t invited to “Popcorn and Movie Night” for months and years on end in the vain hope that some of this “Christianity stuff” would rub off on me. I was not “entertained.” And I reasoned, that if this man had the gumption to hit me sidelong with the truth like that, the least I could do was read what he gave me.
And that I did. I don’t remember how many of the four Gospels I had read before the Spirit of our Holy God made me understand that He is not cold and distant and condemning, but that His mercies are new everyday. That once we come to Christ when we are called, our sin is blotted out and we are given a clean slate. That this Jesus, is the Living Embodiment of Yahweh…in all His hard truth, yet amazing grace.
Do you know Him today? If not, then I say FIND. SEEK. Knock, and His door will be opened with so much grace that you will drown in it. You will die, yes, you but you will also come to life!