Chasing God Until He Caught Me: Chapter Eleven - Confirmation of New Life

June 16-17, 1981

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Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

The next couple of days were marked by a combination of exuberance and ignorance.

Excited because I knew I was not the same person who began this journey two days before, but I didn’t yet know who I was or where all this was going.

I talked to other passengers who would listen, telling them that something wonderful had happened to me, in hopes that maybe one of them could tell me more.

No one could.

The problem was that I didn't know how to explain it. I just sort of babbled it out, like a spring with no clear direction of flow.

Most of the others probably thought I was some freaked-out hippie spouting religious nonsense. I guess I did appear that way with my long hair and beard, earring, and old tattered jeans that fit in so well in Eugene.

One of the passengers sitting beside me on the leg between Chicago and Indianapolis was a very religious girl from a denomination similar to the one I used to be a part of growing up. When I began telling her about how I was “born again”, she was totally clueless.

I didn't know how to explain it further.

All I told her was that she needed to leave the church she was a member of because they didn't preach what the Bible said. Actually, I really didn’t even understand how I knew that at the time.

Of course, she was offended by my ignorant ramblings.

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After 2 more days of travel, the bus pulled into the Charleston, SC bus station.

I was finally home.

Though I had been home on a few brief visits, it had been over 8 years since I had lived in the Charleston area. When I got off the bus, there stood my Dad, whom I had not seen in 2 years.

He and Mom had not liked the fact that after I moved to Oregon I began living with a woman to whom I was not married and who had two children.

So, it was a great relief to them when I told them that I would be moving home.

That was short-lived as my “new-found” faith began surfacing.

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It was after I had gotten settled in that God began confirming my new faith and position as a new follower of Christ.

It didn't take long, after I got home, for my “zeal” to offend my parents. Especially when I told them I was going to find a church that taught the Bible.

Of course, they had been going to church all their lives and were very faithful to their church. I tried to tell them that we are to be faithful to Christ, not a particular denomination or church.

I also let them know that since I was now a Christian, I had stopped drinking alcohol. No one told me to stop. It seem to be the right thing to do as alcohol had dominated much of my adult life. It was much later that I learned how much the Bible warned against being controlled by “strong drink” or “excess wine”.

Needless to say, that resulted in a big argument about whether it was alright for Christians to drink.

“After all”, my Mom said, “didn't Jesus turn water into wine?” Well, I was so Biblically illiterate at that time that I had no answer.

In my zeal to talk to my parents, I was not very tactful or respectful. For many years after that, we seemed to be at a standoff.

My mom would even joke to anyone in our presence that I was the “holy roller” of the family. From my viewpoint, it was more like I was the black sheep.

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The second thing that happened was that my Dad took me aside after one of our “arguments”.

“Son, I’m glad that you have decided to clean up your life, but don’t be a fanatic about it.”

“Dad”, I said, “Jesus expects us to follow Him. It’s all or nothing. We cannot be hypocrites and have it both ways”. Still very ignorant, I was not really able to explain how that was being hypocritical.

Needless to say, from that point on, my parents did everything they could to avoid any references to spiritual subjects anytime we were together.

Sadly, that held true even after I had grown in knowledge and understanding and was able to have a respectable conversation about these things.

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The third thing that God used to confirm my new faith was when I began looking for a job.

During High School, I worked for a man who ran gas stations for one of the major oil companies until they could find a dealer. Richard had been a Marine in Vietnam and was a tough guy. You did not want to cross him. For some reason, he took a liking to me.

So after all these years, I thought I would call him up and see what he was doing and if he could give me a job.

When he answered, I told him why I was calling. He said, “You won't believe this, but we were thinking about you just last night when we drove by your Dad's house to a Bible Study”.

Now, this got my attention for several reasons.

First, the last time I saw Richard was almost a decade before.

Second, the last place I would have ever thought of finding him was in a Bible study.

The third thing was the fact that this was so soon after I accepted Christ's forgiveness for my sins excited me because I was also looking for somewhere that I could go to learn more about the Bible and find others who had been “born again”.

I said, “Man I need to talk to you”. He invited me over to their house that night and we literally stayed up all night talking.

When I told him the whole story of what had happened to me, he said that he also had “gotten saved” about six weeks before this. I still did not understand a lot about all this and had never really heard someone refer to getting or being “saved” except for the man at the yard sale and Billy Graham years before that.

So, Richard showed me in the Bible Ephesians 2:8-9

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

There it was again. Salvation as a gift.

He asked me if I was sure that I was truly saved and I said that I thought so, but I wanted to make sure. So, I asked Jesus that night to confirm that I was truly saved.

My heart was overflowing with joy that I did not fully understand. I never wanted it to end.

The fourth thing that God used to confirm my new faith, draw me closer, and cement my relationship with Him was the way He led me to find a church.

I knew little of the “wiles of the devil” (ref. Ephesians 6:11) at that time, but I learned of God's awesome power to thwart Satan's plans and protect us.

It turned out that the Bible study that Richard and his wife Beth had been going to was in a home just a block away from my parent’s house.

It was two weeks before I was able to go to the Bible study, but an interesting event happened that almost prevented me from going at all.

About 3 hours before it started, I developed a fever and upset stomach. I called Richard and told him that I could not go. He told me that Satan was trying to prevent me from going. He prayed and told me to pray that God would “heal me”.

So, I did. And God did.

I didn’t know what to think. All I can say is that less than an hour later, all signs of fever and stomach bug were completely gone. As far as I was concerned, it was a miracle.

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