Conference yukon::christian_v7

 For me it was about 16-17 years ago.  I was living in California and my
 wife and I had a weekend visitor, a woman friend of my wife's who was a
 Christian.  We had to pick her up at the airport the night of her arrival
 and I had spent the day at a baseball game in San Francisco consuming 
 liberal amounts of a beverage popular at these sporting events.  

 We went to the airport to pick her up and I was still under the influence
 so I figured I was going to show her a thing or 2 and I was cussing and
 making a general nuicanse of myself.  She (the visitor) didn't say much
 but, I did notice her reading her Bible later that night and the next morning.
 We did some sightseeing around and we had a nice time chatting, though she
 didn't do a lot of talking about the Lord.

 The following day, we took a ride to Marin County and went to Muir Woods.
 And, it happened.  Somehow or other, standing amongst those huge trees,
 God broke through, and I knew then and there, that yes there was a God.

 It took a few years for me to come to a full understanding of the need for
 Jesus Christ, but I'll never forget that day as the day that I knew without
 a doubt that God is very real.




 Jim

    Interesting topic...
    
    I always knew there was a God... I had been taught in Sunday School
    from the time I was 2 that God was God and Jesus was his son and I
    believed it all.  I never doubted...  When I was 12 I decided I was old
    enough to get baptized [in our Southern Baptist Church, 12 was an
    average age for kids to get baptized because they surmised it as the
    "age of accountability" equalling the age of Jesus when he went to the
    temple to teach.  So thusly, I went to Baptism class and was baptized.
    
    Now, my life was really messed up... at 12 I was already in my
    rebellion as per my testimony and here I was all dressed up and being
    baptized... didn't do a thing for me, except I thought well I believe
    in God and Jesus as Savior and now I've been baptized, so I'll go to
    heaven [whew that was a load off my mind].  But I continued to get more
    rebellious and more rebellious and 1 year later ended up in the foster
    home.
    
    In the foster home my foster parents witnessed to me about *personal
    salvation* and I told them that I believed and had been baptized.  But
    they kept talking about receiving Christ as Savior.  They gave me a
    book to read entitled, "Run, Baby, Run" by Nicky Cruz.  In the book I
    read the dialog from David Wilkerson and identified with Nicky's
    status of abandonment from his home and family.  About three quarters
    of the way into the book, Nicky accepted Christ as his *personal*
    savior... and at 13 years of age, all by myself, I knelt on my bed and
    asked Jesus to be my personal savior.
    
    My eyes stained with tears and my heart full of joy... all bitterness,
    hatred and rebellion gone from within, I jumped off my bed and ran to
    my foster mother to tell her what I had just done.  
    
    I got him outta my head and into my heart ... :-)
    
    Then it was real.
    
    Nancy

 I went to Sunday school, too, and I think I always knew there was, but for
 the first time as an adult it was confirmed to me that day in Muir Woods.


 I also suspect that my wife's friend's prayers had something to do with it.





 Jim

I think God was always a part of my conscious awareness...  When I was
about 9-ish I was suddenly aware that God was 'outside' rather than
'inside', and that I needed to ask Him in, so I did.  I think I was too
keyed up to listen properly, and expected some personal impact, which I
didn't recognise.  Rather disappointed, I tried again the next evening, 
just hoping that I would have some physical participation in whatever 
transpired, rather than taking it all on trust...  The second time I did 
get a quiet answer inside, telling me: "It's all right - I heard the first 
time".  Boy, was I ashamed to have doubted!

Since then there have been plateaux and peaks.  Certainly other times when 
I have gone through a stage of new recognition of God's personal reality 
and presence with me, which I would put on a par with Jim's woods...  They 
have come alive, because He made them out of His love, rather than just 
'being' - or even just put there...  There have been various special times 
of His more personal touch too...  Just now I feel as if I could do with 
another one... ;-}

								Andrew

I don't have time to write much, but my first thought is not at all about any
blasphemy from you, Ray.  My first thought was actually about the people who
have helped to shape your view of God.  I think Paul was speaking to people
just like them when he wronte to the Jews in Rome (Romans chapter 2),  "The
name of God is blasphemed ... because of you."

It makes me so sad that so many of the people who claim to follow the creator
of the universe, who loved the people He had created enough to die for them
Himself, turn him into a God of hatred and anger.  Yes, judgement is there, but
love is over and under it all.

I believe that God will greatly honor your holding to Him, as evidenced to us
by your continuing to go to church, and continuing to seek Him here and
elsewhere, despite your doubts in the face of what you see in the world and
what people have told you.

Paul

    Ray,
    
    Long time no see... perhaps if you have a moment you can write me
    offline and update me on how *you* are doing these days.
    
    Man, there is so much in your note... so much that I can identify
    with.. as you already know me and my story...  The one thing that
    I saw throughout your note [which I have done so many times myself] is
    lack of personal responsibility.
    
    Adam and Eve had problems with personal responsibility as well.  Which
    seems to me ever so likely that we would too.  I believe too much is
    blamed on Satan.  My son, Matthew, has a natural tendency to blame
    everyone else for his mistakes.  He plays the role of a victim real
    well.  This morning he had to return a box of candy that he didn't sell
    for the school and was very upset at having to so so and began to blame
    me for not taking him out this weekend to sell the candy.  Well, quite
    frankly, he had been taken out 5 times to sell this candy and each time
    quit on the job.  But this morning it was *my* fault because we didn't
    go out *this* weekend... very typical and very normal behavior for us
    humans... we shift blame and avoid personal responsibility.
    
    I think we need to be real careful what we give to Satan's credit.
    I also think we need to be real careful what we give to God's credit.
    
    Nancy

    I've heard it said that our earthly fathers shape our initial view of God, 
    so a little bit about my dad might be pertinent here. He was a man of 
    integrity and principle, and an extremely good provider. He gave a
    sense of solidity to my world. However, he was intolerant of imperfection 
    and had an explosive temper, which could be set off by things
    mysterious to small children, who are little creatures chalk full of
    imperfections, and he worked all the time, so he was often absent. So to 
    the degree that he provided tremendous stability in one direction, there 
    was an equal feeling of uncertainty. We loved, revered and respected him. 
    We also feared him. 
    
    As a child, I eagerly and completely embraced Jesus and his teachings.
    But the God of the Old Testament made me extremely uncomfortable. I
    couldn't seem to reconcile Him with Jesus. He seemed capricious and
    wrathful and vengeful. Very big and probably loud. The book of Job
    troubled me tremendously. *What* was God doing talking to Satan in the
    first place? And why would He let Satan talk Him into letting him
    harrass poor Job? (Not my understanding now :-) .) This troubled me for
    years, and this year, as I began to study and desire to learn more
    about prayer and communicating with God, and was studying the Lord's
    Prayer, I found myself having difficulty with "Thy kingdom come." I
    love the beauty of this earth, and I didn't feel very certain of what
    God's kingdom would be like. In short, I still didn't trust Him
    completely and was very troubled by this. So I continued to pray and seek.
    
    Then this summer last, my husband and I went to St. Simon's Island. We
    were driving back to the hotel after dinner, and pulled up to one end
    of the island looking out onto the ocean. A tremendous storm had come
    up; lightning tore the sky and huge waves were rearing and menacing.
    As I watched and marveled at the power, a group of young boys ran out 
    onto the pier. They looked so small and weak, and yet seemed to believe
    themselves invincible and protected by that little bit of wood
    scaffolding they were standing on. And I started to think about how
    small and insignificant we are and how even small and insignificant the
    power of this storm was compared to the power that created the
    universe. It bore witness to but a small drop of that might. And as I
    thought, it was as if a width open before me, from infinity to
    infinity, of God's power and might and glory. I sat in awe,
    practically holding my breath, lest it should disappear, when there opened 
    before me again, as it were, a depth of love and compassion and mercy 
    equal to the width, and there was no flaw. There was no room in this being,
    as there is in man, for the power to get the upper hand, or greed or 
    vengeance to override the good. It was an impossibility.  All was in 
    perfect harmony. I knew then that I could say "Thy kingdom come" with 
    assurance - no unlovely thing could come from what I "saw" - nothing 
    short of perfection could come from Him. Anything, anything at all that 
    came to me in this life could be met with rejoicing, because He could not 
    and did not mean any poor or harmful intent to me, or any of his children, 
    only good beyond imagining.
    
    That's when I felt I first really knew God as described in the Bible.
    
    Rebecca    
    

Rebecca,

Thanks - that was simply beautiful.

Leslie

    
    I spent a significant amount of my youth in the Southern Baptist
    church.  I heard the gospel often and trusted Jesus fairly early. 
    However, I never heard much of anything else from the pulpit but the
    gospel and the fire and brimstone one at that.  Plus, Baptists in my
    youth were almost indistinguishable from the world - but the culture
    was still "Christian".  At one time in the south it could be said that
    the general population thought anyone that wasn't a Jew was a Christian
    ;).
    
    I went through my teen years and early twenties submitting myself to
    great unrighteousness.  But I believe that I had the Holy Spirit even
    then as I was tame beside my friends and in my heart knew my actions
    were wrong (but didn't know how wrong they were).
    
    As I have related, after a vision I had which was precluded by a
    serious inner struggle to come to terms with my life and with what I
    believed God wanted from me, I made a dramatic move away from my
    friends and surroundings in order to start anew with God.  I spent six
    weeks in a hotel (in temporary living with Digital) reading the Bible
    and other Christian books.  After further inner struggle, I fell to my
    knees in my hotel room and confessed my sin and asked God to "make my
    life pleasing to Him".  I started to look for a church in southern
    California and landed in Charles Swindoll's church for two years or so. 
    I heard about the God of the Bible *fully* and our relationship to Him 
    for the first time.  I grew so quickly under Swindoll's gifted
    teaching.  I changed truly and irreversibly.
    
    jeff

Hi ray.... 

Romans 8 came to mean a whole lot to me once.  I struggled with a lot of 
that book, because theres heavy stuff in it.  But it says some really 
sensible stuff in chapter 8 ;-)

Verse 26 says that God, the Holy Spirit helps us to pray.  He knows what's 
meant, EVEN IF WE DON'T.  Better than that, even is verse 31 to the end. 
It says that, really, if God is working for us, who is there than can 
count for anything whose against us?

Verse 23-24 says that if God thought we were worth coming to die for, is he
going to quit now?  He started the job.  He *is* going to finish it.  It
doesn't rely on us understanding it, or having a warm feeling about it - or
about Him ... that *would* be nice.  But lots of times we have to go
without the tangible feedback. 

It did something to me when that bit of the chapter clicked...

Job was some guy.  He was committed to God enough for God to use him to win 
some points off the devil.  The devil said no-one *really* cared about God 
- they only wanted what they could get out of it.  Job became the proving 
ground, not because God didn't love him, but because God *did* love him.  
	- Loved him enough to trust him with God's reputation.
	- Loved him enough to build up his spiritual maturity to the 
	  greatest he could be, for eternity.
	- Loved us enough to give us the example of Job right early on in 
	  creation, so we could see from it that when God is out of sight, 
	  we have to wait and trust, because He's right there all the time.

God didn't let the devil go beyond limits He set.  And he restored Job 
afterwards, for a witness to us all...

We want comfort and safety for this life.  But God knows there's something
infinitely more important.  And that's what we are to be for the life to
come.  Job was ready to put what he knew in his head into practise.  Then it
becomes part of your character.  In your heart.  Pain, because it costs to 
get it...

Ray, imagine being in the place where God reckons your comfort is most
important - ie eternity.  With Him.  It blows away any reckoning of this
life as important, except how it can be used to make the next most
effective. 

He cares, Ray, about you.

About your dad - sometimes Christians are taken through such places they
can't see God.  Job cursed the day he was born, it all seemed so wretched.
But the real Job underneath knew that God was righteous, whatever He did
that Job couldn't understand.  That's why Job didn't turn against God and 
curse Him, accuse Him of doing evil, like his wife tried to get him to in 
Job 2:9.

Ray, time to leave your dad to the Judge of all the earth, who does right. 
Moreover, He loved your dad enough to die for him.  Really.  And for you.

					God bless you, Ray...
								Andrew