Did you WANT to be a Christian?

Posted : 19 Dec, 2010 07:29 AM

Some people come to Christ easily, others hear about the truth of Christ and salvation and, at first, want to run the other way!!!





Here is an article from a past issue of Charles Stanley's In Touch devotional magazine about how hard it is for some people to come to Christ and the blessing they receive when they finally do.



How easy or hard was it for you to come to Christ?



Love,

Steve



I Didn't Want to Be a Christian, But . . .

By Joseph Bentz

. . . how running away can take you on an unexpected journey.



Sara Miles did not want to be a Christian. Anne Lamott did not want to be a Christian. C. S. Lewis did not want to be a Christian. Neither did R. A. Torrey, Ziya Miral, Lin Yutang, Jim Vaus, or a dozen others I could name.



How do people find God when they�re running away from Him as fast as they can? As those of us who have agonized over our spiritual journeys know, it�s hard enough to find Him when you�re searching for Him with all your might�when you�re praying, reading Scripture, hearing sermons, seeking guidance from Christian friends and pastors. So how much hope is there for those who simply don�t want to be bothered with God? What about those who are actively hostile toward Him, or who don�t even believe He exists, or who dislike Christians and Christianity so much that they would be horrified to think of themselves as having any association with such people?



In preparation for a book I am writing on the tipping points between doubt and faith, I have studied dozens of conversion stories and have interviewed many people about how they came to faith in Christ. Some of the most surprising�and inspiring�stories were of converts who didn�t just find God, but who felt pursued by Him.



Sara Miles was not fond of Christians. She describes herself as �a blue-state, secular intellectual; a lesbian, a left-wing journalist with a habit of skepticism.� Though her grandparents were Christian missionaries, her mother and father rejected what they saw as �the whole unbelievable, illogical concept� of God, and they raised their daughter in an atheistic home. Most of what she associated with Christianity she loathed.1 What could Christianity possibly have to offer her? Why would she even consider turning her life upside down and facing the derision of her family and her entire social circle in order to embrace God?



Anne Lamott does not seem a probable candidate for Christianity either. Like Sara Miles, she grew up in a household of athe-ists, where belief in God was scorned. As an adult, Lamott enjoyed success as a novelist but also became entangled in drug addiction, alcoholism, bulimia, and unhappy love affairs. Her friends were �brilliant hilarious progressive� people who would not comprehend someone in their circle turning to a faith like Christianity.



Jesus shows up and changes everything.



Both of these women became Christians. Neither of them sought God. Instead, they and others like them describe a process of God pursuing them, and His presence was not always welcome. As another reluctant convert, C. S. Lewis, put it, �Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about �man�s search for God.� To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse�s search for the cat.�2



When Anne Lamott sensed the presence of Jesus in her room, she was in distinctly unreligious circumstances. Leading up to that night, she had hit a crisis with her alcohol and drug use. She believed she would die soon, but �out of nowhere,� it crossed her mind to speak to a priest at a nearby Episcopal church some family friends had told her about. Her discussions with the priest helped push her a little further toward belief, and not long afterward she began to attend St. Andrew Presbyterian Church because she liked the music she heard coming out of it as she walked by on Sunday mornings. She stayed only for the music and left before the sermon was preached.



She became pregnant around this time, had an abortion, and that�s when Jesus showed up. Weak from bleeding and �shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill,� she lay in bed and became aware of the presence of someone in the room with her. �The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there�of course there wasn�t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus. I felt Him as surely as I feel my dog lying nearby as I write this.� Even then, she did not welcome Him. She was �appalled,� worried about what her friends would think if she became a Christian. Conversion seemed �an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, �I would rather die.��3 She felt Jesus with her there all night, watching her in patience and love, but she did not invite Him into her life until a week later, alone in her houseboat.



For Sara Miles, it was also an encounter with Jesus�unexpected, unsought�that transformed her. One day, out of curiosity, she walked into St. Gregory�s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. �I had no earthly reason to be there. I�d never heard a gospel reading, never said the Lord�s Prayer. I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian�or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.� She looked around, admired the beauty of the church�s interior, and took a seat hoping no one would notice her. She sang with everyone else, feeling a little ridiculous, and then a woman announced, �Jesus invites everyone to His table.�



Miles went forward and stood at the table. After more singing, someone put a �piece of fresh, crumbly bread in my hands, saying �the body of Christ�, and handing me the goblet of sweet wine, saying, �the blood of Christ�, and then something outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.�



That was Miles� moment of conversion, but it so bewildered her that she immediately sought alternate explanations. The word �Jesus� lodged in her mind, and she said it over and over, not knowing why. �But it was realer than any thought of mine, or even any subjective emotion: it was as real as the actual taste of the bread and the wine. And the word was indisputably in my body now, as if I�d swallowed a radioactive pellet that would outlive my own flesh.�4



What about all those unanswered questions?



The whole process by which resistant unbelievers find God�or He finds them�is nothing like what I would expect. These skeptics have strong objections to Christianity. I would expect that before they came to Christ, they would seek some opportunity to present these doubts and objections and get solid answers to them. Only after each point of contention on their list had been checked off as adequately answered could they safely give their lives to Jesus Christ.



It rarely happens that way.



Jesus catches people mid-stream. Sometimes He appears when they least expect and least want Him. Some of their doubts about Him may have been answered, but many others remain, and many have not even occurred to them yet. But there He is, His presence loving and patient and inviting. And they either accept His invitation or they don�t. Believers aren�t people who have answered every question about Jesus. They are people who have met Him.



God is out to get us.



If God pursues and finds Miles, Lamott, and countless other reluctant converts�people with cultural, social, political, moral, and criminal reasons to avoid Him�then who can be said to be beyond His grasp? For whom is it safe to conclude, This person is too far from God to ever reach Him? too hostile toward Him? too vulgar? too sarcastic and dismissive? too evil?



The question of who is too far gone for God to reach is a question people have been asking for centuries. When the Pharisees and teachers of the law complained that Jesus spent too much time with �tax collectors and �sinners���people they considered beyond hope�He answered with parables of God as Pursuer: the story of the lost sheep and the story of the lost coin. In the first one, a shepherd has 100 sheep and loses one of them. He leaves the 99 to go pursue the lost one, and then he calls his friends and neighbors together to rejoice when he finds it. In the next story, a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. She searches diligently until she locates it, and then she celebrates with friends and neighbors.



You might think that for God, 99 out of 100 sheep would be enough. Nine out of ten coins should be more than adequate. What�s one sheep or one coin more or less when you have so many? Plenty of men and women seek God out voluntarily and then devote their whole life to Him. So why would He bother putting forth so much effort to find people like Anne Lamott or Sara Miles? Or me? Or you? Yet I feel�and love�that pursuing Spirit of God whom I sense moving deep within me. I�m grateful because I know I�m the lost coin He�ll turn the house upside to find. I�m grateful that finding God does not depend on my effort alone. Even if I�m hostile, deluded, full of sin, and indifferent, He still wants me.



As a long-time Christian, I still feel God�s loving pursuit. Sometimes my own skepticism flares up, or I get angry with the church, or bored, or bogged down with difficulties, or I feel unappreciated or misunderstood. Quitting is a temptation, but something deeper than all those problems�the pursuing, loving, embracing Holy Spirit�keeps me and my fellow believers connected to Him and the church with a deep bond. No matter how discouraged I get, God�s deeper sustaining love and purpose hold on to me. As Eugene Peterson paraphrases a verse from Psalm 23, �Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I�m back in the house of God for the rest of my life.�



1.Sara Miles, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion (New York: Ballantine Books), xii, 7, xiii.

2.C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1955), 227.

3.Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 9, 41, 49.

4.Miles, Take This Bread, 57-59.

Copyright 2010 In Touch Ministries, Inc. All rights reserved. www.intouch.org. In Touch grants permission to print for personal use only.

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