My Conversion
I was raised in a small town and attend a typical dead United Methodist Church from about age two years to sixteen years, when I stopped attending because I was by then a confirmed atheist. I won't go into the reasons why I became an atheist, except to say that the hypocripsy of the adults attending the church had a lot to do with it. It certainly was not because of any intellectual justification, because I was not into that sort of thing at that time. I was a marginal student, interested only in partying, getting high on alcohol, pot, and harder drugs. I saw nothing wrong with my lifestyle since it was the one of my friends, and the influence of the 1960s was beginning to filter down to small towns like where I was raised. Since I was confident in my own way, I thought adults should be so too, rather than getting drunk on Saturday night and going to church on Sunday morning. Anyway, this lifestyle I led in complete bliss for about five years, until one pleasant March evening I walked out of a bar where I was greeted by a lovely young girl (actually a wife and mother) who began witnessing to me about Jesus, taking an angle that really appealed to me, that of the importance of truth. We went at it for a while, before she invited me over to the fellowship house a few blocks away, where there would be a meeting in about an hour. I followed her and several brothers and maybe one or two other unsaved who had been gathered from the same area where the bar was. At the fellowship two brothers in particular took an interest in talking to me, they had an easy going way about them, and seemed to understand my lifestyle, having long hair themselves and having been exposed to the things of the world that I loved so much. These brothers argued with me, again centering on the importance of truth, knowing truth, and living for truth. I had the typical irrational view of truth, that what's true for you is truth. Anyway, we got to the point where it was apparent that the only way that I could know if what they said was true or not was to try it. Since I have always wanted to experience everything in life at least once, I decided to try Jesus by praying to Him when the brothers and sisters got together for prayer. One of the two brothers led me through a simple sinner's prayer, like the one we used to have printed on cards that we carried with us everywhere. When I prayed, acknowledging my sins and asking for forgiveness and the gift of the Holy Spirit, immediately Jesus was faithful and saved me, filling me with joy and peace in the Holy Spirit, and I began to cry, knowing how much He had forgiven me of. And remember, I was being forgiven of sins that only one or two hours or so before I did not realize that I had, because I did not believe in sin, thinking that all truth was relative.
Email: japostle@angelfire.com
