It was at church this morning, before we were called upon to pray for one another, that one of our pastors got up and began talking briefly about when he became a Christian. “It was 30 years ago when I first came to Christ,” he said.
Holy crap, I suddenly realized, me too.
I was four years old in 1975. I don’t remember exactly when all this happened, but in my memory it was colder than usual, so sometime in the winter. We were living in Hayward at the time, and Mom had recently recommitted herself to Jesus. (She usually refers to this time as when she first became a Christian, although she had followed Jesus ever since she was little. But it wasn’t until she was 25 that she actually began to understand him. I don’t know that understanding is necessary for salvation. Repentance, maybe, but not understanding.)
So, as a newly-committed follower, she realized it was necessary to share her faith. She tried Dad, who wasn’t receptive. Then God directed her to me.
“He’s too young,” she protested, “he won't understand.”
As I said, I doubt understanding is part of it. But God kept directing her to me. So she sat me down and explained to me, as best as one could to a brighter-than-average four-year-old, that Jesus loved me and wanted to save me.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll ask him into my heart.”
But Mom was worried she might have pressured me a little too much on this salvation business, and asked me to think about it for a little while. It had to be something I really wanted to do, not just something that I was going to do to make Mom happy. Most Fundamentalists would have a conniption at the very idea of putting off a faith decision, but I agree that following Jesus is not something to enter into lightly.
I put it off for a few days. Then I came back to Mom and said, “Remember what we were talking about? I still want to do it.” And I did.
It was still three years before I was baptized. By then, Mom and I were attending another church in Hayward, and most churches unfortunately have this idea that you have to understand baptism before you can participate in it. So you have to go through baptism classes. What’s so hard to understand about repentance? Anyway, I didn’t really need to be baptized—I had already been baptized as an infant, back when Mom was a nominal Catholic—but this church taught baptism didn’t count unless you meant it, so since we meant it, we were re-baptized.
We actually got baptized out in public—they had just laid the foundation for a new sanctuary, with built-in baptismal, and the church decided to hold the service outside, on the concrete slab, and baptize us in front of God, them, and all the cars passing by. There's nothing like a good public confession of Christ.
Over the years I went from being a strong follower to a sloppy follower—the popular term is “backslidden” but I wasn’t sliding back to anything, having been Christian since age 4. And eventually back to a strong follower again. But 1975 is the point where I recognize my first choosing to follow Jesus. (He had plans for me long before then.)
Thirty years ago. Yikes.
…Of course, 30 trillion years from now, I don’t suppose I’ll be so particular about how long ago it was.