My Testimony (Brent)

You might often hear someone's testimony that consists of a spectacular moment in their life when they knew that everything changed. Habits, attitude, demeanor completely make an about-face and their lives are changed. While those salvation "Saul to Paul" style moments do in fact happen, that's not how my conversion took place.

When I was in kindergarten and first grade, I went to a local private Christian school. Every Wednesday, we would have routine chapel services that consisted of worship and a short sermon. Being so young, my capacity to absorb the sermons was limited since they were directed for a broad age range with the majority of students being a lot older. However, there was one distinct service that sticks out in my memory. After the chapel service, the students were filing out by grade. Our class was one of the last to leave since our classrooms were the closest to the sanctuary. I remember sitting there just thinking, as deeply as I could at that age, and seeing God as appealing. The best way I can explain it is that God seemed worth my time.

I've doubted that moment in my adult life as a significant point of conversion. However, from that moment on, I distinctly remember thinking of God often and praying to Him. I was obsessed with Bibles to the point of almost collecting them. I'm very introverted, even to this day, so I would often play outside by myself. I have consistent memories of praying to God and being confident that He was hearing me. The primary evidence that I hang on to that this moment was significant for my conversion was my conviction of sin. When I was young, I rarely got "caught" doing something I shouldn't. That wasn't because I didn't do anything wrong, but I would feel so guilty when I disobeyed. Hours or even days would go by that I would feel convicted to the point of feeling sick and couldn't find relief until I would "tell on myself" to one of my parents. Coincidentally, the same Christmas my grandma "Nana" got me my very own Bible, which I still have to this day.

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Embarrassingly, one of my favorite activities when we had guests at our house was standing on our brick fireplace with my Bible and pretending I was preaching. My overly repeated catchphrase was "get saved, get saved!" as I patted my head with a handkerchief. Looking back on my life, I see God's sweet hand of providence working in my life. The best way to explain it is I see the phases of the roots of my faith were getting deeper and deeper progressively throughout my life. God used significant events, people, situations, hardships, etc., to feed the roots of my faith.

I wanted to share my testimony to possibly encourage someone else and give them confidence in their salvation. We can get narrow-minded into thinking that conversion must be a theatrical surreal experience, and we overlook the more common subtle hand of God in our life. The flesh, fueled by the devil, loves to sow seeds of doubt in regards to salvation. Our salvation isn't dependent upon our ability to maintain it. It's solely dependent upon Christ and His righteousness through the Holy Spirit to keep us in order to endure to the end. When our salvation is in question, remember, it's not your name on the line; it's God's. His name never fails. God keeps His own for the sake of His Holy Name.

John 8:36 (LSB)

36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.