I remember when...

...I was sitting in the car with my dad in front of Canadian Tire in a parking lot in Grimsby. I can’t remember exactly how old I was but I’m guessing it may have been around the age of 6 because I distinctly remember that I was wearing some of my hockey equipment. I remember when I asked the question. I can’t remember exactly what I asked and to be perfectly honest I don’t remember what the exact answer given was. I do remember that was the day that I consciously made the decision that Jesus needed to be in my life regardless of what I thought that meant at the time.

For any Christian believer, that moment is one that passes in and out of memory but never vanishes from the heart. I am forever tied to that moment in which I acknowledged that by my own strength and my own works I am not good enough. My understanding of the decision that I made that day has grown over the years. I understand what it means to have Jesus Christ in my life. I realize that I am a sinful man in need of the grace that was achieved through the sacrifice that Jesus became. I see what Jesus meant when he said that I must deny myself, take up my cross, and follow him. I know that I often fail miserably at living up to the example that Jesus set for me. I rejoice in the fact that when I do fall down, he picks me up, cleans me up and points me back in the right direction.

If I could go back to that day and tell that much younger version of me all that would transpire over the next 20 or so years, I think that the little boy sitting in that car in his hockey equipment would be amazed at all of the things I’d be able to tell him that God has done in my life. He would probably be startled by many of the things that I have done to make the journey thus far so much more difficult than it has needed to be. I would definitely be embarrassed to have to explain to him some of the things I have done. He would not understand why I did them because he knows them to be wrong.

Undeniably, the hardest and darkest points in my life so far are the points where I have turned my back on Jesus and forgotten about that decision made some 20+ years ago. In those dark times, when I have been wandering lost and unsure of where to turn, that choice I made shines through the darkness like a beacon leading me back to Jesus.

Do you remember when you made the decision to pursue Jesus? If so, I hope that you also never forget it and that in troubled times you can use it to bring you back to a place of peace. If you have never made that decision I can only say that after so many years I would still make the same choice a million times over. I hope you will too.

Mike