Yesterday, I wrote a lot about what I used to be like and how I am remembered in my home town. An event took place about twenty-five years ago that completely changed me in every way.
In my college days, I was wild and up to no good. When I married at twenty-nine, I had stopped the riotous living, but my heart had not changed at all. Shortly after Nancy and I got married, we moved to my hometown and I joined a law firm.
We starting attending the church that my family had attended for several generations. We became a part of a wonderful young married group at the church. We did not have a lot of interest in some of the things that they talked about. They referred to things like “meeting Jesus”. Nancy and I often mocked their conversations when we were alone.
Within a few months, Nancy started talking like them. The next several years of our marriage were happy, but we clearly identified religion as a subject that we should not talk about. There was nothing attractive for me about becoming what she called “born again”.
Within a few years, I had gone back to the oil business which necessitated a move to Houston. A year later, we were sent on a temporary assignment to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was so temporary that we had not bothered to find a church.
I had an extremely unusual event take place on my drive home from work one evening. The Bible tells of times when God Himself appeared to people. The scholarly term for an occurrence like this is a “theophany”.
As I pulled off of the interstate highway, I became conscious of a Divine Being sitting in the passenger seat. I was able to park on the shoulder of the access road. I did not see a great light, but I was not able to see much. I had a conversation with Jesus Christ, right there in my car.
It was pretty simple. Everything that had occurred in my life left me well short of where He wanted me to be. I was asked to agree that I would follow and obey Him. I did something that I had been trained never to do in law school. I made a commitment without any idea of what it required.
I was home in another five minutes. Nancy greeted me at the garage door and she could tell that something had happened. I was worried that she would think that I was crazy. She knew what had happened, she had prayed for it for some time.
I had been very stubborn about all this. God got tired of waiting and came and got me. That night I was changed from who I was to who I am today. I would not be living the way I am today if it had not happened. We would not have five adopted children to raise during our retirement years.
I am very stubborn; He knew how to get my attention.