Course Charting: How God Found Me (Part Two)
Continuing from yesterday….
Okay, so I’m hurt and mad and fully committed to proving Bill Gothard wrong about rock music being the work of the devil. So I read. I listen. I give the arguments a fair hearing. And then something completely unexpected happens.
Somewhere in the midst of the books and tapes and spinning my records backwards to hear satanic messages, it occurred to me that I hadn’t given any consideration to this God whom I was told hated my music. In fact, I had to admit that I didn’t even know God well enough to consider what He thought any kind of music. Slowly at first, but then more rapidly as it became clear to me, the absence of God in my life eclipsed all the criticism of my music. Like the moon passing in front of the sun, God became the focus of my attention and the desire of my soul.
I didn’t respond to an alter call. I didn’t pray the sinner’s prayer. I didn’t even tell anyone that God was increasing and music was diminishing. I simply complied with my parents’ desire to tone down the heavier rock and I agreed with my band that I was no longer in the band. Both of these developments should have been devastating, but now they were hardly even disagreeable. I didn’t know enough to articulate it like this at the time, but I was slowly giving in to God.
The following year was confusing. I entered and dropped out of college. My band reunited for a couple party gigs, then disbanded again. I tried to read the Bible, but it made no sense. I prayed, but it felt like empty words. I was really struggling to know what this shift toward God really meant. Then, in the summer of ’84, God revealed Himself to me. Here’s how: My parents changed churches while I was at college. When I returned home for the summer I accompanied them. It was there that I first heard that God wanted a relationship with me, and it was my sin that prevented it. It was also at that church that the Bible finally made sense and the preachers words were relevant and prayer was more than just words. And it was the first time I ever encountered a Christian my own age. Three college age Southern Belles came to our church as summer missionaries. They had never been out of the south. I had never met a real southerner. We became instant friends. Through them I learned to pray, study the Bible, and what it meant to be a follower of Jesus Christ. But I still wasn’t quite there…yet.
It happened on a Saturday morning. I was laying in bed thinking about how much my life had changed in a year when suddenly I pictured a bridge spanning a deep ravine; like the one in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. I was standing at one end and Jesus was on the other. I knew I had to cross, but I also knew that if I did, I could never go back. As I stood there weighing my decision, Jesus waited patiently on the other side. I tried to think of the things I would be leaving if I crossed over, but none of them seemed all that important anymore. So I took a deep breath, grasped the rope on the side, and walked across. I count that vision as the moment I became a follower of Jesus. There was no fanfare, no emotion, not even a warm tingly feeling…just an awareness that I had crossed over to Jesus. I’ve never seen that bridge again. I’ve never wanted to look.
