Testimony

Yesterday in my sermon I shared a piece of my personal testimony. I was surprised at the emotion that I had to choke back when I began telling it. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at that, but after so many years you'd think I could tell it without having to blink back tears.

At any rate, since I don't actually write it down very often, here's what I said...

My “met Christ” story actually has several chapters. I don’t know exactly when I first came to realize God was real – it just dawned on me as a little boy; at some point, even though I wasn’t leading what you’d call a wild life in the 2nd grade, I said a prayer and knew God heard me. Then, in the summer after the 8th grade I went to a youth retreat in Biloxi, MS, and had an amazing encounter with Christ. A girl sitting across from me in the darkened room at the retreat that night told me months later without knowing what had happened inside me that she looked up as we were praying and saw a bright light directly behind me. Still later, in my mid-thirties, I had climbed up the ladder of success and had begun to enjoy its spoils but then it dawned on me that there had to be more to life than making a lot of money, living in a nice house and having a great family. And so I turned to the Bible and sought deeper meaning in life and God met me again, radically reorienting not only my life, but the lives of those I love most.

God is good...