The Grace To Tell The Story...

The sky filtering from brilliant blue to softest pink as we make the two hour drive home from Grandma’s house, just me and the kids.

 

My thirteen year old is sitting up front and we are telling God stories, and he asks me to tell my best God story again, the one about how I got adopted into the family of the Great King. 

It is a great story.

And I can’t resist telling it.  I love to tell it.  It was the best day of my whole life. 

The day Jesus rescued me, it was dramatic, and I tell again how my two friends Deb and Rach had been reaching out to me in all my darkness, loving me when I was so unlovable.  How they loved me when no one else did and I knew there are was something different in their lives, some kind of love that I desperately needed.  Love that I didn’t get from partying, relationships, or New Age spirituality.  Love that only Jesus could give.

I tell how that Friday morning, on the way to class at college, Deb had tried to tell me about Jesus and the Bible and I had rejected it.  I had said that it was fine that she believed all that stuff about God but it wasn’t for me.  I didn’t believe that.  I had offended her.  We had plans to go out to eat that night but when dinner came, she didn’t show up.  She thought I wouldn’t want to go out with her after our conversation.  But I wasn’t rejecting her, I was rejecting Jesus.  So I called her.  She said she was going to church that night instead.  I wait for the invitation.  She doesn’t ask.  So I say, “Can I come?”

“No,”  she tells me, I wouldn’t like it.  Remember that just that morning I rejected Jesus hard core.  I beg her to let me come because I have nothing else to do on a Friday night.  She finally relented.

When we got to the church, all hell broke loose literally.

I was overcome with the darkness that had been my whole life, and I heard evil telling me to run out of that church.  I broke out in a rash and started itching like crazy.  The evil said that if I left the church the rash would stop.  But I wouldn’t leave. 

The congregation was singing a song with words that said,” get back spirit of darkness, get back before this dwelling place, we are God’s people and we are saved.”     I’m pretty sure that was intentional, because it was an all out war at that moment.

And as I watched these people worshipping with hands raised, I knew that this God they worshipped was real.  I could sense His power, His presence, His goodness. 

We sat down to listen to the preaching and my friend shared her Bible with me to look at. As I laid my hand on the Bible to look at it I felt it pulsating like it had a heartbeat.  I ripped my hand off of it.

My friend leaned over and asked me, “What is wrong with you?”

“It’s moving,” I said.

She laid her hand on the Bible.  “It feels normal to me,” she said.

Later, when I first read the scripture that says, “The Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12. I knew that God had been allowing me to experience supernaturally, the truth of His word.  Because His Word is alive. 

At the end of the service, the pastor gave an alter call.  He said, “There is a young woman here tonight that needs to come up and receive Christ.   Jesus is calling you to come.”  I knew that he meant me.  God was calling me.  I had never been to this church before but God was calling me tonight.  My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest, but I could not move from my spot. 

The pastor kept calling this young woman to come forward.  People came but he said that young woman that God was calling hadn’t come yet.  Finally he closed the service but as he did he prayed in faith that the young woman would pray to receive Christ before they closed the doors of the church that night.

My friends turned to me and asked how I liked the service.  I said, “It was ok.”

They asked if they could pray for me.

“Sure, what could that hurt?” I said.

This group of teenagers surrounded me and began to pray for me and God began to move.

The fire of God fell on me and I felt like liquid fire was burning down my body from the inside out but in this wonderful  healing pain.  I was sobbing and sweating and the darkness was leaving me.

By the time they were done praying for me, I was laughing and I felt this feeling of being clean from the inside out.  And the darkness was gone. 

My friend asked if I had ever prayed to receive Christ.  I said no.

He asked if I wanted to.  I said, “Yes, I am ready to surrender my life to Christ. “  And before I left that church building, I bowed my head and repented of all my sin and trusted in Jesus death on the cross to pay for all my failures and gave my life to Him.

God proved himself to me, He delivered me from darkness, he set me free from sin and death.

And as I finish telling my best God story to my oldest son, my six year old son who is sitting behind me starts to cry.

“Mom, I am sorry for being so bad today.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“For disobeying you, for not listening to you.  I don’t deserve it mom.  Will you forgive me?”

“Yes, honey I forgive you,” but I am wondering where this is coming from.  This six year old who had been having so many behavior problems lately, so many struggles.  I wondered when this child would finally be ready to give his life to Jesus. 

The car was quiet, but I could still hear him sniffing behind me.

We pull into the driveway of home.  I open the door to help get six year old Christian out of the car.  He grins at me big and shy. 

“Mom, on our way home, I asked Jesus to come into my heart.  I heard your story and I wanted to ask Jesus to come into my heart too.”

I laugh happy and hug him wild. 

“Christian, this is the best day of your whole life!  Do you know that Jesus loves you and he died for you to pay for your sins because you could never be good enough on your own?”

“Yes mom, nobody is good enough.  We need Jesus.  Thank you, Mommy.”

And this is grace.  Wild, untamable grace.  Grace when you least expect it and don’t deserve it.  God pours out crazy grace on people like us, His beloved children.  The children that He died for, to buy out of slavery to sin and death, to make a family for himself out of all of us rebels.

 And He makes us into obedient sons and daughters who love like Him and live like Him, all because of grace.