That is an amazing testimony of your willingness to wrestle with God, and of His faithfulness and persistent pursuit of you. If you don’t mind, I’m going to share that post with my 15-year-old son. He’s fascinated with science, and what you described is SO similar to the things I’ve mulled over with him both privately and in the youth Bible class I teach. A lot of his friends are atheists so we talk a lot about the evidence and about positive deconstructionism - how to find what is both true and false about different worldviews.
I can’t even say how much I relate to the sorrow, confusion, bitterness, questioning, searching, and realization (making real) of the Lord. Sometimes it takes a lot of pain before we can see what’s right in front of us.
My dad was very bitter for most of my life. His mom had emotionally abused him - the first child of her second marriage based on expedience after her beloved first husband died. He was never quite good enough for her, and it ate away at his soul - especially after she died and he had no chance to get the approval he so longed for.
My freshman year in college I was in a near-collision on my bike and realized that I could easily have been killed and if I had been killed I might never see my dad, 2 of my brothers, and 2 of my sisters again because I had no idea whether their faith was real or just a cultural facade. I prayed that if it took having me die to wake especially my dad up, that God would do that.
About a month later my brother and 2 sisters were in a pick-up collision that should have killed them all. We still don’t know how one sister made it out of the pick-up, which had the hood crushed to the steering wheel after rolling 3 times down a steep embankment. When they found the pick-up it was on top of my other sister’s leg, my sister’s ear and a piece of her scalp were torn and dangling, and her neck was rested against a barb-wire fence. My brother had a punctured lung. I remember saying, “God, I said You could take me, not them. They’re not ready.”
They are all fine and have come to know the Lord, but the most miraculous thing of all was the change it effected in my dad. The man whose bitterness had kept him from attending my confirmation bought my mom a string of pearls and told her if she would get dressed up then he - after all those years of leaving her alone to deal with 12 kids in the church pew - would go to church with her. Now none of us can even mention the Lord’s goodness without my dad crying. It was he who spoke faith to me after we lost our Melinda Rose.
Just yesterday my Mom told me that Dad had gotten those pearls restrung and wanted to go pick them up as soon as he got word of it. And this morning she reminded all us kids why that string of pearls means so much to him, and to her. That was Dad’s way of telling Mom that he was back, that God had won him over from his bitterness. Just thinking about it makes me cry for joy. How many prayers were answered by that string of pearls and what it represented.
At my son’s confirmation my daughter is going to sing a song by Twila Paris called “He Is No Fool”. I would sing it but I know I wouldn’t get through it without crying. It talks about two people who were expected to do great things but who instead gave up everything to follow the Lord’s call to them. “For the love of his Savior, for one priceless jewel. They could not understand so they called him a fool. He is no fool if he would choose to give the thing he cannot keep to buy what he can never lose, to see the treasure in one soul that far outshines the brightest gold. He is no fool. He is no fool.”
I always thought that Christians are the wise man from the parable who discovered the pearl of great price and sold everything he had to get that glorious jewel. And certainly it would be worth losing everything to get that one priceless Redeemer. But I’ve come to think that even moreso, we are the pearl of great price, and God Himself the wise one who was so taken by the beauty He saw in us (even when we were ugly and dirty) that He sold not only everything He had but actually allowed Himself to be sold into death for 30 pieces of silver to buy us back from sin’s slavery.
He gave everything for us, and the greatest honor in the world is that He allows us to give everything for Him.
Someday maybe you can introduce your daughter to me and I can introduce mine to you. As we gather in Jesus’ lap.
Excellent testimony, Butteredzillion. It was very moving. Yes, sometimes it sure does take a slap in the face from the Hand of God to wake us up to His presence! I’m so happy your family turned to Christ. For, as the Bible says, what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
You certainly may share my story with your son.
I didn’t go into detail on the “tests” I performed as my comment was ever growing. However, a couple of years ago, I did go into some detail concerning a few of those tests over at NoCompromise’s website.
Here’s the first portion of it:
http://nocompromisemedia.com/2009/07/31/did-yeshua-give-us-the-name-of-the-anti-christ/#comment-4977
And, here’s the rest of that “test God” thread:
http://nocompromisemedia.com/2009/07/31/did-yeshua-give-us-the-name-of-the-anti-christ/#comment-4985
I have many more “test”imonies, of course, but these are the ones I have opened up about and chosen to share with others.
You are free to share any of my “test”imonies as you see fit.
Cheers