Better Late than Never

Before I became a Christian, during my school years, I attended Sunday school every Sunday and I started to attend church during my high school years and continued to attend for eight or ten years after graduating.

I began to realize that the bickering and fighting that took place in the
church politics contradicted my thinking that the church was the one place where people were supposed to work together. So rather than joining in or fighting the situation, I stopped going to church.

I also believed I had control of my life and believed I had to do it myself—without God. After all, the man of the family was supposed to support his family. I considered God to be a crutch for those who needed him and it was okay for other people to need Him.

I thought the Bible was written by theologians 500, 1000 or 2000 years ago, who thought the world needed something to believe in (something like Santa Claus for the kids). However, I still considered myself to be a Christian because I was respectful to the people in my life and was usually willing to help them out. I didn’t really know who Jesus was; his supernatural magic or tricks were hard to believe.

My conversion to a real Christian began about three years after I was down-sized from my job as a senior officer at one of the local banks. I had been in banking for 38 years with four different banks in New York State and Pennsylvania.

I decided, without God, to go into business for myself and within a year I realized I had lost control of my life and was headed for financial disaster. I also began to have health problems because of the stress caused by the financial trap I found myself in. I felt like I was losing everything I had earned in the past 35 years. I remember thinking I was digging my hole deeper every day I went to work. I started taking medication to relieve the stress that made me feel so depressed.

One of my customers, Pastor Paul, asked me to go to lunch one day and he started testifying to me and convinced me that the Bible was the word of God and that it has been researched more than any other writing in history.

Even though I have lost most of our material possessions we had, it doesn’t matter anymore. God has given me new life and I now work at His being in charge of my life. I still work on "Letting Go and Letting God" because I get caught up in where my responsibilities end and letting God take charge.

I read the Bible almost every day now and I am attending church and Sunday school almost every week and am planning to attend the prayer meetings. I also attend a Wednesday night Bible study. This started when I made a deal with Pastor Paul that I would attend Bible study if he would play racquetball once a week. He started and I had to start Bible study, and of course I had to attend church too. At least I didn’t make a pact with the devil!

I now believe Jesus to be the Son of God and his life was as it is written in the Bible. I believe Jesus died for my sins and has provided me with the gift of salvation. I have to work consciously on changing my attitude toward the Bible and its words. Sixty years of less then healthy thinking is going to be a full-time challenge for me to change. I hope to be down-sizing myself during the next year and am looking forward to spending more time with my family and my church family.

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