Alive in Christ

On the morning of Friday, March 9, 2007, I drove the train station. I parked facing south, and sat in my car to think and pray. The previous evening my wife Beth and I and our friends, Jerry and Cheryl, had been to see the movie, Amazing Grace. The day before, I had been reading some of John Piper’s writings on the supremacy of Christ and they had made a marked impact on me. In particular, I had been convicted by his comments on what it means to really know God and to really know Christ, and how that meant not just head knowledge but intimate personal acquaintance as was pictured in the marital bond.

That morning driving to the train station, I was also thinking about the conversion experience of John Wesley and how it took a long time and was difficult for him to understand. Perhaps most important, I was going through a period of turmoil in my personal and professional life and was exhausted and despairing of hope that things could get better. I was terrified that I would always be the way I was, and I was profoundly disappointed and unhappy with that state of affairs. I was looking at the church steeple of a little chapel nearby. I was thinking of the words of the old hymn, I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, I cannot bear these burdens alone. I must tell Jesus, I must tell Jesus, Jesus will help me, Jesus alone.

As I got out of my car to walk to the train platform, I prayed, “Dear Lord Jesus, please take my sin-ridden life and make it yours. I don’t care what happens to me or my career or if you send me to Africa. I can’t take this any more.”

As soon as I prayed this, I felt an immediate sense of peace and rest come over me. It was as if a wild and riotous storm at sea had suddenly hushed and fallen calm. I do not know if I was truly saved before that moment, and I am not certain I am qualified to say, but in that moment I felt perhaps for the first time in my life that I was truly His. I felt as though the Kingdom of Heaven had come down to a commuter parking lot, and into my heart.