my story

It's interesting what details stick in our minds, I can honestly say I don't remember a whole lot about being five years old but I do remember one day very well. I was sitting on one of the swing sets in our back yard my mom was on the other one we were practicing the alphabet and the sounds they made if memory serves correct we were on the letter E (is for elephant) and my mom started talking to me about Jesus and salvation. I don't remember the exact words she used but I know that I knew I was a sinner in need of Jesus and that God loved me so much He had sent His only Son to die for me. That day I accepted God's offer of salvation and my life changed forever. I can remember over the next several years truly falling in love with Jesus I was the holly roller, bible boy and a few other names as a kid. In a small town being home schooled and going to church in your basement (we had a small house church that at the time met at our house) was more than enough to make me the weird kid on the block, add to that the fact that some of the neighbor kids were not as interested in hearing about Jesus as I was to talk about Him. Thinking back on those years I don't remember a whole lot just some snapshots, I remember sharing Jesus with my friend and next door neighbor with a children's Bible and all I can remember of the conversation is how I told him that at the judgement seat God would separate the sheep from the goats and that I was a sheep and going to heaven and he was a goat and going to hell because I had accepted Jesus as my savior. Okay so maybe not how I'd say it now but back then before I ever heard of arminianism, Calvinism before I understood words like propitiation and atonement all I knew was Jesus was real He had changed my life and I wanted to share that with my friend. And God honored that I got to pray with Him to accept Jesus and become a sheep. I remember getting water baptized, I don't remember the day but I know it was COLD we were at a friends house on the Bay and my cousins were also getting baptized and I can remember sitting on the rocks wrapped in a towel shivering. ( I was doubly blessed, when my mom led me to Christ she was a newer believer herself and so I got grow in the Lord with her as she learned new things she passed them on to me, I can remember many a time talking with each other about something we had read in scripture) So while I may not have understood all the significance in water baptism I knew I wanted to obey Jesus and be baptized. I can also remember being filled with the Holy Spirit, mom had told me about it and I wanted it we had prayed for it and one day while I was playing in the living room under some blankets turned into a tent I felt the Presence of God and received the gift of Tongues ( I believe I was filled with the Holy Spirit the moment we prayed even though the Gift of Tongues came later) I was so excited I ran outside to tell mom, what a great day that was. I wish I could tell you it was always like that but sadly things changed. Slowly the cares of this world became more important than the things of God especially football and that's how most of my teen years went a spiritual roller coaster of ups and downs with God calling me, the world calling me and wrestling with heavy questions. There were months of backslidden complacency with times here and there were I'd respond to Gods calling but through it all God never gave up on me and mom never quit praying for me. And God used a a speaker at a youth camp to get a hold of me in my late teens I rededicated my life to God and began slowly to start seeking the things of God again. By the time I was eighteen I was serving as a youth leader and striving to answer the call I believe God had placed on my life. Yet even as I served in ministry I struggled with questions, I was longing for something more I wanted to live Christianity as I read about it in acts. I didn't want to just read about the great revivals of days gone by, I wanted to see God move like that now. And over the next five or six years I began searching for that asking lots of questions moving from church to church looking for something more..... (to be continued). I realize this is a very condensed version of the journey God has led me on and there were many other life changing moments the infamous Green Lake experience, our family trial, etc. but through it all God has loved me and He has used all of it to make me into who He wanted me to be. Just like Romans 8:28 says "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." So as I look back over my life I see the tremendous grace of God, I see He has never left my side, He has loved me through it all and I can be sure that He will continue to be Faithful and I can stand with confidence on the promise of Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: