Walking the path

(2-minute read)

The first real truth I discovered about God happened when I was 14. This was long before I had a real relationship with him. It happened on what was, until that point, the worst day of my life. I felt rejected by everyone that I knew. As I was walking home from school, I felt a sudden presence on the sidewalk. I couldn’t see it, but I felt it strongly and knew it was God. It wasn’t at all like what I expected God to be like. Among all the differences, the strangest part is that he loved me. I wasn’t expecting that.

At 14, my idea of perfect love came from watching my mother. She was the gold standard of what real love was like. What I felt from the Lord that day differed from my mother’s love. My mother seemed to love me more on some days than on others. Her love was based on feelings; the Lord’s love was not. His love wasn’t a feeling but a consistent fact. It didn’t matter what I did or said, his love was the same. I didn’t know love like that even existed.

I wanted to respond, but I didn’t know how. Even if I had fallen to my knees and begun to worship, it would have been an inadequate substitute for a response to the Lord’s love. If I loved someone, the response I would hope for would be that they would love me back. Any other response would be less satisfactory. No religious thing that I knew would have been adequate. I wanted to love him back, but I was incapable.

Over the next 10 years, my relationship with the Lord was mainly about asking for things. Three times he saved my life from certain death. When I was 24, Tom Waters told me how God so loved the world that he sent his son Jesus to die for everything we had done wrong and to restore us to the Father. He said I needed to accept that and publicly say it. He said if I did that, God would send the Holy Spirit to live within me. This is the mechanics of salvation. God did it whether I believe it or not. I wanted to do what God wanted of me, proclaim Jesus was my Savior and Lord.

Tom took me to church that night to do just that. When I stepped out of the pew to proclaim that Jesus was my savior, as my foot touched the aisle, something happened within me. I didn’t expect that. I didn’t know I was supposed to be different immediately. After that, I could honestly say to God, “I love you.” I needed the Holy Spirit just to be normal with God. By comparison, my love for the Lord wasn’t as much back then, but it has grown since I have come to know him better.

A relationship with the Lord does not need to be religious; it just needs to be real.

Photo by Markus Winkler