Part 2
And so, there I was, a people pleasing five year old who’d walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, and been thoroughly dunked.
I meant well and thought I understood what I had done.
Now, there are many who believe if a person prays a prayer of salvation at any age and believes they mean it, they are certainly saved and have won heaven, whether there is any noticeable change in them or not.
But scripture speaks clearly to the importance of sanctification. To the work of the spirit in the life of a true believer. To the bearing of fruit.
Let’s just say, nothing changed in me other than the title I could now claim.
It’s funny though… At eight years old, I actually led my best friend in the sinner’s prayer, so set that she too should be a Christian. Thankfully, she went home and talked to her pastor father who gave her much clearer guidance than my well meaning but very lost little self had been able.
True Conversion
By God’s grace, he didn’t leave me in the state of thinking I was in Christ when there was no change in my heart.
The fall after I turned 10 years old, I decided to tag along with my dad the night he took our youth group to a Judgment House play at a local church. Ever heard of it? I don’t know if they’re such a thing now, but when I was a kid, these plays were all the rage. A church would set up rooms and you would walk through each following the story. There would be six main characters. Three trusted Christ. Three did not. In the end they all died tragically, three being damned to hell, and three rewarded eternity in heaven.
(Fun Fact: I lived in South Georgia at the time and the local church that put on the Judgment House was Sherwood Baptist Church… the church which, about five years later, would produce the movie Facing the Giants and go on to follow it with Fireproof and Courageous. So that’s kinda cool.)
Anyway, I see Judgment House now as more of a scare tactic that I’m not very comfortable with by way of evangelism. And funny enough, even at the time I don’t remember feeling particularly moved by it. I felt the “hell” room was underwhelming. And if heaven was a bright white room with clouds, angels and harps surrounding a man in a fake looking brown beard, there was certainly much to be desired.
So have no fear that I was moved to salvation by fear or theatrics.
It wasn’t until the end, as we sat in a room to think and pray over what we’d seen, that the simple and much asked question was laid before me which God used to open my young but suddenly seeing eyes.
“If you died tonight, would you go to heaven?”
A simple question, perhaps not even the most provoking question. And certainly one I thought I’d already answered in the affirmative… but very suddenly and quite out of nowhere, I knew the answer.
No. I wouldn’t.
It didn’t matter that I’d known the right answers, or walked the aisle, or been baptized, or joined the church, or taken the Lord’s Supper countless times.
God used the simplest of questions to bring to my realization the most devastating of answers.
I was, in that moment, very aware that I did not know the Lord, that I had not been aware of my own sinfulness all this time, and that I suddenly and certainly now saw my need for Him. As deeply as a 10 year old is capable of understanding… I knew.
I remember walking the hall out to the church van with my dad. I expressed my concern and my realization of my need to be saved. That night my parents talked deeply with me and prayed with me and the following Sunday I was baptized yet again.
But this wasn’t like my “conversion” those years before. It wasn’t about what anyone thought but God himself. This was different. Very different.
The Change
All of a sudden, I saw God in everything. I looked for him in everything. I wanted to read His word. I could see my need, my sin, and there was a desire to change. Sure, these were small changes and not noticeable to everyone. But I distinctly remember that God as Father was suddenly a reality to me and awareness of my own sin was something I could not ignore.
Three people I knew died suddenly that year. A young woman from our church youth group was killed in a car accident. A friend of my parents’ suffered horrifically from cancer before it claimed her life. A man that was like a grandfather to me dropped dead of a heart attack. All of these people knew and loved the Lord, so I knew their ultimate destination and joy… but it shook my world.
Three months after my conversion, my parents told me we were moving two states away for my dad to go to seminary. I loved my church, our little town, and most of all, my best friend who lived minutes away. The first real friend I’d ever made. I didn’t want to leave. It was the hardest move we ever made. (And we made quite a few.)
But even in all of this, through the grief, the anger, the tears, and the confusion, I remember looking to see what God was trying to teach me. Even at my young age, I knew God worked all things for good. I knew He had a purpose in all He did.
That knowledge would become all the more vital when, at the age of 13, I turned in the car to speak to my brother in the backseat, but was unable to turn back around. With no warning, my neck locked up in excruciating pain.
And so would begin one of the longest and most painful physical and spiritual journeys of my young life.
For the sake of time… Part 3 coming next week.
My Family Freedom 