Here is a little explanation of where I've been and where I am. Just so you will know a little about me. Not that that is important. Just in case you are curious.
I really am nothing special other than what I have gained from Christ Jesus. That in itself is a lot and would take a long time to go into the details. So, to try and keep it short and readable, I will try and be brief.
In the beginning of my search for some meaning in life, I was 16 at the time and knew there was something more to life than what was in my view. I began my search for the deeper things in life. It started with reading books on Eastern Mysticism, Confucius, Buddha, Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet) and Proverbs (Holy Bible). I desired wisdom and sought after it thinking that it would somehow take me where I wanted to be. It was good but not good enough. I experimented with various spiritual rituals that I would prefer not to go into. Basically, everything I could get my hands on that would broaden my mind and help me to be a “deep thinker” was part of my journey. It is not necessary to go into all that either. Needless to say, I knew there was still more and I still hadn’t found what I was looking for but I thought I was getting close.
What happened next didn’t fit into my concept of the meaning of life or at least in the direction of where I was headed. My sister came home for the weekend from LSU. She too was one that was searching in many of the same areas I was. But there was something different this time I saw her. She had really gone crazy this time. She had experienced Christ in a real way. It bothered me, it didn’t fit into where I was going but I was curious. She invited me to go to Baton Rouge to meet with a group at LSU that were all in love with Jesus.
I went for the weekend and what a strange bunch of people, real Jesus freaks but not in a hippy sort of way. They were just ordinary people but different. Really different! The one thing that I noticed though that I had never seen before was a very real way that they loved Jesus and each other. None of it made any sense though. It was a very surreal experience. I was trying to figure everything out and couldn’t. Nothing made sense. They would sit around in a living room, sing songs about Jesus and call on His name, constantly. As I sat there trying to figure it out someone asked me if I wanted to call on the Name of the Lord. It didn’t seem like anything that would hurt and I did have some faith that Jesus was Lord but no understanding. So, I started calling on the name of the Lord based on Romans 10:9 that says “That if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” Well, it didn’t make sense but somehow I was different. Where before it was all about me and what I could do, all of a sudden it wasn’t about me and I was now experiencing a love and a joy I had never known before. It is still something I can’t explain how and why sufficiently but it was real.
I went back home (in New Orleans) and back to school. I was a different person and my friends noticed it too. Many of them did not understand but they also came to know the Lord with me. During that time of my senior year of high school was very special. I experienced the Lord in so many ways that there was no way that I could ever not believe in Him.
I know there are a lot of people today that are very skeptical about there being any reality in God. Especially if all they know is what they have seen in religion and even Christianity with all of the hypocrisy and crazy things that people will say and do. All I can say at this point is that there is no comparison to the person of Jesus Christ and what is sometimes practiced and proclaimed in Christianity.
Well, moving on with the story, it was a very wonderful time of my life, one that I can never forget or deny. However, my life was about to make a very dark turn. I was very young and there was a lot I did not understand. My experience of the Lord was very real but I wasn’t getting the nourishment I needed to sustain me in this new life I received. I will get into this at a later time.
I came to a point where I had an honest and real confession before the Lord. I confessed that I knew without a doubt that He was real and that He was everything that could ever satisfy me. However, I wasn’t ready to completely give everything over to Him. So, I asked Him to please allow me to leave Him and pursue a life of enjoying sin for a season. I was the typical prodigal son. I wanted things my way but always knew that I would have to and want to come back to Him and give myself completely to Him.
Eight and a half years later, I came to the end of my running.
Lord, thank you for your mercy and sovereignty towards me my whole life!
To be continued…………………………………
