Life Changing Events

As I write this, I am three days from another birthday. When I look back on life, I can see God working in every part. We all go through life-changing events. Nearly everyone can include marriage, the birth of children, and grandchildren on the list. Still, I will set those aside for the moment and get more personal.

Placing the life-changing events in my life in chronological order, they would be: the death of my sister, salvation, the financial woes of Ft. Polk, and our house burning down.

Brenda was eleven years my senior and passed away eight days before her twenty-seventh birthday. She died of leukemia, but she only knew she had the disease for twelve days. I was closer to her than anyone else in the family, including mom. I was at her house every day, and we bowled together once a week. I was her go-to babysitter for her baby. Even though I was a fifteen-year-old boy, my best friend was my older sister.

Our family wasn’t religious. We did not attend church or pray before meals. A Bible usually sat on the coffee table, but it mainly gathered dust. Brenda was the exception. Even as a teenager, she taught Sunday school, attended church regularly, and shared her faith with me about Jesus.

I was nine years old when Brenda married, and shortly after her marriage, my parents, brother, and I moved 2,300 miles away. After three years, we moved back to my hometown. Still, by then, I was utterly uninterested in the “Jesus stuff” that Brenda was involved with. Three years later, we were attending her funeral.

Before we moved to California, Brenda bought a new Bible and gave me her old one. A few days after she died, I decided to read the book. I knew it was important to her, and if it was important to her, it must be something I needed to know. I had never really taken a look at it before. After a search, I found it in a box, tucked away in a closet. I started reading at the beginning, the book of Genesis. I read every day at first, but as time wore on, interest began to wane. By the time I reached the middle of Exodus, I stopped. It wasn’t a decision, like, “I’m not going to read this anymore.” I found the book boring and gradually lost interest over time, and before I knew it, I was no longer reading it.

Brenda’s death leads me to the second life-changing event: my salvation.

Nearly three months after Brenda’s death, her Pastor pulled into the driveway. There was another man in the car. I had never met him before, but I recognized him. Being a big sports fan, I had seen this man play college basketball. He also had a very short-lived NBA career. The two came into the house. John, the other man, and I talked about basketball for over an hour; when he asked, “What are you doing tonight?”

The only thing I could think of is that he was going to ask me to shoot some hoops. I told him I wasn’t doing anything, then he floored me with what he said next. “I’m preaching at the church tonight. Why don’t you come?”

I’ve never backpeddled so hard in my life, before or since. I gave them every excuse I could think of, and they had an answer for every one. All I had left to say was, “Look, man, I don’t want to go.” However, my parents raised me to be polite to my elders, so I agreed to let a couple from the church pick me up and take me.

That night, he preached on Acts 26:28, “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”

He talked about how some people were “almost Christians.” Good moral people, but without faith in Jesus Christ. There I sat, a fifteen-year-old boy with straight A’s in school. I never got into trouble. If my parents told me to be home at 10 pm, I walked in at 9:45. I was good at sports, respected my elders, and I was the poster child for the all-American boy, but I was on my way to hell.

I wasn’t perfect, and no one is; that is why we all need a Saviour.

Space will not permit me to get into my days at Ft. Polk or our house burning down, but let me get into a little more detail on how Brenda’s death and my salvation changed my life.

If Brenda had not passed away, the odds of me being in the churchhouse that day are nil. Brenda’s death did get me thinking about life, death, and God. My searching for that Bible after she died is proof enough of that. Brenda’s death was a catalyst for nearly everything that has happened in my life since. I would not have received Christ as my Saviour that day I went to church because of the basketball star. I would not have started attending church. Since I met my wife at church, I would never have met Julie, and I would likely have married someone else along the way. I wouldn’t have the children I have. I may have had more or fewer kids. My kids would not have married whom they married because my current family would not exist. The effects of Brenda’s death extend for countless generations and on into eternity.

Through God, my salvation changed my life. Yes, I was the All-American boy, but I couldn’t say I had never told a lie or had an evil thought. There were other sins as well, things that I got away with, and other things for which I received discipline.

God loves us, and He is also a just God. Being a just God, God must punish sin. For God to save His creation from their sin and continue to be a just God, He must punish a sinless substitute on our behalf. The only one in the history of the universe that fits this bill is God’s Son, Jesus Christ. God’s justice and Jesus’ perfection are why salvation is by faith, not by works.

That night in April of 1975 changed my heart. Now I find the Bible exciting and life-changing; now I want to go to church. Now, my goals in life, as best as I can tell, are what God wants for me, what He created me for.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”