God Sighting! God Sighting! Did you see Him?

We had vacation Bible school (VBS) this week at Longview Christian Church. I was a family leader and helped walk a group of kids around as we learned the Bible story of the journey of Joseph in Egypt (the boy who got the coat of many colors from his dad, and his brothers got jealous, beat him up, threw him in a well, and sold him to some slave traders traveling to Egypt. God did all that to get him in route to save all the people in the region from the 7 year famine that was coming. Read the full story in Genesis 37-50. It’s an awesome story). We talked about “God sightings” in our time at VBS, and God reminded me of the first time I saw Him. I thought about you, and decided I would tell you my story… my “God sighting.”

I grew up in Longview, TX. My parents brought me to church every Sunday ever since I can remember. I remember one church kid’s camp, similar to this VBS, up at Lakeview Baptist Assembly in Lonestar, TX. I was 11 years old, having a blast at this kids camp. They kept sharing the story of Jesus every night, and inviting us kids to give our hearts and lives to Jesus so that we wouldn’t die and go to hell. It was a 3 day camp, and I was scared to death of dying and going to hell. Finally, the last night, I gave into my fears and prayed their prayer. I prayed for Jesus to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart and save me. I walked down the aisle and stood up in front of everyone. They all clapped, and sent us kids down stairs and gave us a pamphlet to read and encouraged us to pray and read our Bible. I hated to read and told God, “I’ll pray, but I ain’t reading that Bible.” I had this nagging feeling that night that what I had just done didn’t save me. I didn’t even tell my parents I had done it when I got home. A week later, the kid’s minister told my parents about my aisle walk. I agreed to baptism, and was baptized a couple weeks later with the rest of the kids who prayed the prayer and walked the aisle. My dad bought me a Bible, and I just tossed it under my bed because I hated to read.

I had that nagging feeling, “All this didn’t save me.” That nagging feeling went on for seemed like a year. I finally ignored it as I grew up to be a teenager. I fell into sin as most teenagers do. I developed a filthy mouth, a lustful heart, and my relationship with my family fell to pieces. My parents kept forcing me to church every Sunday. I would just sit in the back drawing or sleeping. Then, I had a friend at school start hanging out with me on the weekends. He wasn’t a Christian, and rarely stepped foot in a church his entire life. He would spend the night just about every weekend, and we would camp in the back yard or in the woods. My parents would bring us both to church every Sunday. I was back there sleeping or drawing, but he was listening. He’d never heard all this stuff, so he started asking me all kinds of questions about God on our campouts. I told him, “I know what the pastor has been saying, but I don’t know what the Bible says.”

I went hunting for that Bible my dad gave me years ago. I finally found it, and wiped all the dust off it. I grabbed a dictionary from my parent’s book shelf and started reading my Bible every night, looking up in the dictionary all the words I didn’t understand. I was looking for Colossians 3 to share with my friend. My dad tried to get me to memorize it years ago, but our relationship was bad. I thought what he shared with me was really good, but had no desire to memorize it at the time. I was trying to find Colossians 3 to share with my friend, but I couldn’t remember where it was… and I sure didn’t want to ask my dad and let him know I was reading my Bible.

I started reading my Bible in 1 Corinthians, since it started with a C… and I was pretty sure what my dad shared with me started with a C. But, I wasn’t finding what my dad shared with me. I had a highlighter and started highlighting everything good I was finding to share it with my friend on the weekends. I read 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians but didn’t find what I was looking for. Then I thought, “Well maybe it’s a G and not a C.” So, I read Galatians, then Ephesians, Philippians, then finally Colossians. I finally found what I was looking for and shared it with my friend. But then I couldn’t put the Bible down. My soul longed for its words. I kept reading a chapter every night and highlighting all the good stuff that stuck out to me for about a year before I had my “God sighting.”

I still had a filthy mouth, a filthy heart, and my relationship with my family was terrible. I was reading my Bible one night, and God convicted me of my sin. I was cut to the heart. I began weeping over my sin… crying like I never cried before… sobbing from the depths of my soul. I hated who I had become. I hated my filthy mouth and filthy heart, but had no power to change it. I prayed the same prayer I prayed when I was 11 years old, “Father, I hate who I have become! Forgive me! Come into my heart and make me the man you want me to be!” Right then, I felt the Holy Spirit come into me. I was in my bedroom at 16 years old, and my whole body felt like it was suffering from burns when the pain was quenched at the moment I prayed that prayer. It was like when you burn your finger on the stove and immediately put it under cold water running in the sink… the sense of relief radiating out from your burned finger to the rest of your body. That’s the closest I can describe what it felt like when the Holy Spirit came into me.

From that point forward, I became a new creation… what the Bible means when it says, “to be born again.” I was delivered from my filthy mouth and my filthy heart, and over time, my relationship with my family was restored. I kept telling my buddy about everything I was finding in the Bible every time we were together. He started to go to church on his own accord and ended up giving his life to Jesus too. Then we both invited another friend on our camping trips to share with him what Jesus had done in our lives. Eventually that friend gave his heart to Jesus.

And that’s just the beginning of my “God sighting.” I’ve been following Jesus every step of the way for over 18 years now, and there are so many “God sightings” I could fill a book. But this was my first (and most important) “God sighting,” and I had to share it with you in hopes that maybe one day you will know Him too. Seek Him, and you will find Him. “Father, please open our eyes that we may see You!”