"“Come, follow Me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed Him" Matthew 4:19-20
I love hearing testimonies of how Christ came into people’s lives. It is inspiring to hear how they found themselves broken, and entered into this warm, wonderful relationship and how He touched them. I too have a relationship with Christ, one that has sustained me through so many situations in which emotional pain was excruciating. My relationship with Christ, like everyone’s, certainly involves the realization that He is the Potter who can repair my broken pieces.
Having said that, I’ve always been moved by what I first saw in December 1974. An acquaintance from college had allowed me to spend the night at his family’s home, and we talked for a long time about his relationship with Christ. My friend showed me what God, through His Word, said about me. It wasn’t what it said about what I should do, or what I shouldn’t do, it was how He talked about who I am. I saw a distinct and profound difference between what God’s Word said about who I was versus what the world had always told me about myself.
I was nineteen, raised an atheist in the school of rational thinking (Ayn Rand was a favorite in my home.) My family-of-origin believed I should be conditioned more than raised, and constructed rather than nurtured. I was not conditioned to respond emotionally to “religious dogma”. Raised by an attorney, I was always prepared to cross-examine anyone.
- “You’re too tall.” "You’re too short.”
- “You’re too clever by half.” “You’re an idiot.”
- “You’re too smart for your own good.”
- “You’re too insecure.” “You’re too full of yourself.”
- “You’re too slow.” “You need to slow down.”
- “You’re just a quitter.” “You don’t know when to give up.”
- “You’ll never amount to anything.” “You can do whatever you set your mind to.”
God’s Word told, and still tells, me about myself:
- “You have fallen short of the glory of God (along with everyone else), but He has made a way.”
- “You are so precious He gave His only Son to pay the price for you.”
- “You can accomplish anything, through Him.”
- “You, like everyone else, will struggle with doubt, weakness, and temptation. He will make a way where you can’t even see a way.”
- “You are forsaken by this world, you will be an orphan, a stranger in a strange land, but He will provide you with what you need.”
- “You can’t be smart enough, good enough, good looking enough, wealthy enough, persistent enough, logical enough, well connected enough, powerful enough to overcome the world. The better news is that you can’t be so dumb, so bad, so ugly, so poor, so defeated, so illogical, so isolated, so weak and powerless that God can’t heal you and make you whole.”
The truth about me that I found that night convinced me that I could trust God. I didn’t understand much more than that right then, but for me it was more than enough. I knew the world could not be trusted to tell me about myself, but God could be trusted to clearly tell me who I am. I could trust that God has always loved me, and I already knew that the world had no love for me, only for itself.
Nothing that I’ve experienced over the last forty-six years has caused me to change my mind. The world is still a liar, especially when I listen to it try to tell me about myself. God still loves me, and has demonstrated His love for me so many times I have a hard time thanking Him enough.