People who are asked to give their testimony are only asked because they have one. And as far as I can tell, there are only two kinds of testimonies out there anyone cares about. There are the testimonies that talk about God awakening a sense of purpose in a life and that person's fulfillment of that purpose. But then there is the other kind. The kind I have. The kind where someone has a past and everyone gets the dirt. There is a glimpse of redemption at the end, but what people remember is the scandal. That's what they leave talking about.
I panicked because I didn't (and don't) want people to walk away from hearing my story talking about everything else about me except the redeeming love of Jesus Christ to pull me out of darkness into His glorious light where I am restored. So now I'm conflicted. How am I supposed to fill up fifteen minutes avoiding dirt and aiming for redemption without muddying it all up anyway?
None of the people who asked for my public testimony have ever even heard it or cared to. In a joking (but eerily serious) tone, one of them asked for all the juicy details. I can think of a lot of reasons to say no to the whole thing. But then I started thinking about Paul.
Hardly anyone ever talks about his persecution of the earliest Christians. He calls himself the 'chief of all sinners' and still, no one dwells on his sin. What is it about him? And then I figured it out. He confesses his sin freely, moves on and preaches the gospel. He moves on. Why had this not occurred to me before? Most of what we have from Paul is not his exploits in murdering followers of Christ, but his message of redemption in Christ for all people. He wrote most of the New Testament about restoring people to the Father through Jesus and His sacrifice. He wrote about what it means for us. What it meant for him.
All of a sudden, I knew what I was going to say into that microphone. Here is what I came up with, and since most of it came by way of a nudging in my spirit, I can only assume it's what I'm supposed to say. Father God, I hope you approve.
I don't know exactly why I'm standing up here in front of you, but while I am I figure that I better say something worthwhile. My story is largely untold and well hidden. It will stay that way, because sin and darkness won't find their glory here today. My story isn't nice and neatly packaged because my life didn't happen that way either. A lot of it I still can't explain to myself, so I won't venture into trying to explain it to you either. So I will say what I do know.
My life from the start has always been about running away. I was saved when I was 8 or 9, but without any discipleship at all, I wandered. Eventually my wandering was running. And really, when you're not running to God, you're running from Him no matter where you say you're going. I looked for answers to life's questions in all sorts of places and I found answers, but only answers that led to more questions. So I gave up the search for whatever it was I was looking for and started to really give up at age 19. (Which yes, was only four years ago.)
It didn't take long after that to truly feel forgotten and separated from God. You can imagine how a wanderer feeling like that begins to live.
I have to tell you about two days that changed everything for me. I was pretty low at one point and in a dark time, a woman who I don't know and can't remember told me that God had asked her to tell me something. She said that He wanted me to come back to Him. I was sort of annoyed that she said this and brushed it off. The thing was that her words wouldn't get out of my head. They kept on being recited over and over making me dizzy with them. Finally I got angry and rejected the words because I didn't think that I was the one who did the leaving in my relationship to God.
The words wouldn't go away, though. They haunted me. I did what any person would do. I hid in the pews at church which I had not attended in years. I plastered a smile on my face and pretended that I was ok. I guess a lot of people do that. But it didn't make her words go away.
I tried to 'get my life together' and started living rightly thinking that it would somehow satisfy the emptiness that had been building in me all those years that her words had exposed. I kept hiding, but it wasn't doing any good. My husband and I decided to try the church one more time before we left for good. And then it happened.
Everything should have panned out to a normal Sunday of fake smiles and handshakes. But the pastor called the invitation first that day. Before the sermon started, he stood up in front of everyone and like he could see right through my clever disguise he asked, "Where will you run to now?"
If only he knew how many times I had written those very words to myself on tear stained diaries and journals. It's like he exposed my real dilemma. I had nowhere left to go. He went on and said, "Run to Jesus and give it to Him." My fake smile was nowhere to be found and it was replaced by tears. A flood of tears. I never cried in public and here I was exposed for a fraud and God had called me out, but He still wanted me back. Can you believe that? After everything, He still wanted me back. I don't even want me most days, but He does.
Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
I told Jesus that moment that I wouldn't waste any more time running from Him and I would start fervently pursuing Him with everything I had left. It's not much, but He has it.
It's all really about running in the end. You go your own way because you think you know better. Maybe you've been running in the wrong direction. If you're a Christian, have you been seeking God in everything or trying to figure things out for yourself? Someone is here today who doesn't know Jesus. You know about Him, but you don't know Him. Will you run to Him today? Will you accept the payment He has already made for you on the cross for forgiveness of your sins? If that's you, don't wait. "Today is the day of salvation." Ask yourself- if I dropped dead today, am I 100% sure I would go to heaven? If you answered anything less than 100%, don't wait. Make it right today in this moment. Ask Jesus to save you and forgive you of your sins. Be restored.
