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On a Personal Note . . .

When I was 22 years old, I had an encounter with Jesus Christ that permanently changed my life. Without a doubt, this was the best and most important thing that has ever happened in my life. Here is a brief summary of what happened.

First, you should know that I was not raised in a particularly religious home. My family attended a nearby church until I was about 8 or 9 years old. At that time, we stopped going to church altogether, which was fine by me because I found it to be quite boring. Even before that, though, there wasn’t really any spiritual activity in the home. We didn’t even say a token prayer before meals. (Don’t get me wrong, this is not meant to put my parents down. They loved me very much and took great care of me. And they had their own reasons for the choice to stop attending church at that time. My point is simply that I had little to zero interest in God or church as a kid.)

When my older brother and I finished middle school, my parents sent me to a private Christian high school. (This decision was for athletic reasons. The athletic program at the public high school we would have attended was in disarray, and athletics was very important to my dad. So he chose to pay for private school rather than have us in a free but dysfunctional athletic program.)

By the time I finished high school, however, I was actually beginning to doubt that God even existed. I can’t claim that I had looked into the question with any degree of intentionality or serious thought, but that’s where I was. I was going to school with all of these friends of mine who, for the most part, had been raised in the church and who went to church most every Sunday. And yet, they were no different than I was! I couldn’t see that God made any more of a difference in their lives as He did in my own. So, I came to the personal view that if anyone actually benefitted from their religious beliefs, it was because of their belief itself, and not because what they believed in was real.

A couple of years went by and things in my life began to fall apart. I had always been a fairly happy and well adjusted kid. No real worries, lots of friends, outdoor adventures with my Dad, and basically very much enjoying life. But a long standing relationship of four years with my girlfriend suddenly came to an end, and it really pulled the rug out from under me because my life had over time become centered in that relationship.

There were several other things that contributed to a downward spiral for the next couple of years. I found myself with fewer friends because of my own neglect of the friendships I had in high school. Several of my friends went to out of town colleges, and most of the rest of my friends who also went to McNeese State (in Lake Charles, LA where I grew up) joined fraternities, whereas I did not.

My parent’s marriage was also coming to an end. That made my home, where I still lived while going to college, a depressing place to be. And my relationship with each of my parents was strained as well.

Lastly, I began using drugs – mainly smoking marijuana – on an increasingly regular basis to the point where I was getting high every day as a means of escape. Not good. Not good at all!

So, I had this downward spiral thing going on from about age 20 that brought me to a very low point in life. I had lost my footing, so to speak, and I couldn’t get it back!

Now, during this same period, I began to read through the Bible. I had become a fairly voracious reader by the time I was 18 or so. And I thought to myself that if I was going to deny the existence of God, the least I could do was to read through the Bible. So, I read it straight through pretty much -- except for getting bogged down for a while in trying to slog through the prophet books at the end of the Old Testament.

Reading the Bible changed my mind about God, but it still didn’t change anything about me. I became convinced – simply by reading the Bible – that this book was unlike anything else I had ever read. In my mind, this Book could not have been written merely by men. I couldn’t have articulated an argument very well for why I had come to believe that, but I had definitely become convinced of it.

About this time, I got a call from a guy (“Dave”) I had met a couple of times before. One of my best friends from high school played football at LSU. He was in a Bible Study with some of his fellow athletes with a group called Athletes in Action. Dave worked for Athletes in Action and when I was in town occasionally visiting my friend, I was introduced to him.

Well, Dave was on his way to McNeese State for a speaking engagement, and he called to invite me to come to the meeting, so I agreed. I don’t remember too much about his speech, but afterward Dave and I went to a nearby burger joint and had a late meal. We ended up talking for about an hour or more. He also gave me a small booklet (The Four Spiritual Laws) about having a relationship with God. I knew as we talked that this was something I wanted. So, when I got home, I read through the booklet and asked God to come into my life, to take over, and to make me the kind of person He wanted me to be.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but nothing happened! So I prayed the prayer again. And again. Still, nothing happened. Now, I had a final exam the next morning that I had been diligently neglecting to study for, so I decided I would try the prayer again the next night. Right now I finally needed to study. So I did.

But as I sat there at my desk, with my mind no longer on God, but on Economics, I could sense that something was happening inside me. And there were two things in particular that I experienced – light and peace. Whereas my life on the inside had become very dark with a significant amount of depression, I found myself being increasingly filled on the inside with what I can only describe as light. And the tension that I was carrying constantly within me because of my disorientation with life in general was replaced with peace. I really had no idea to what degree these two things had grown within me until they were replaced that night. This light and peace grew within me for about a 30 minute period of time until I was filled with them. But I was also aware that what I was experiencing was a person, and that person was Jesus Christ.

I was blown away by this experience. The next day, I called Dave to let him know what happened and to find out what I needed to do next. He put me in touch with some of my fellow students at my campus who were involved with his ministry group. The booklet I had read through also had some suggestions for growing in this newfound relationship with God, which included reading the Bible.

Well, after this, you better believe I looked up those contacts and began reading the Bible again! I had been amazed by discovering that I could actually know and experience the living God. But now, when I read the Bible, it was different than it had been before. It was as though the words themselves sometimes came to life. I learned soon afterward that this was because when you give your life to God, one of the things that happens is that He makes you alive, spiritually, to Himself in a way that you weren’t before. And I also learned that He actually takes up residence within you in the person of the Holy Spirit. And one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is to make His Word come to life in the hearts and minds of His children.

In the days that followed, I was introduced to some important literature that helped me, as a new believer, to understand what had happened and how to grow going forward. And I applied myself to that process with a pretty high degree of energy and effort. As a result, I quickly grew.

That is not to say that all the things that were out of whack in my life were instantaneously “fixed”, because they weren’t. Instead, it began what is better described as a process of slow but continued transformation in the weeks, months and years that followed.

As I said at the outset of this little sketch, this was the most important thing that has ever happened to me. I could easily fill a book with how my life has been impacted in the years since then, but that is not the point of this little summary. Instead, I have had the desire, ever since that first night, to help other people make the same discovery that I made.

This was different from “religion”. There had been points in my life where I had a degree of religion and when I “believed.” But these periods stood in sharp contrast to the discovery that I could experience God Himself and a relationship with Him.

Not everyone is interested. I understand that. And I don’t have any interest, really, in trying to convince anyone who has no interest. But I do believe that at any given moment in time, there are a lot of individuals who have come to that place in their own lives where they want God and want to know Him and want to have what He offers. If you are one of those people, I would happily offer my time to discuss it with you.

There’s a verse in the Bible where Jesus says “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure, hidden in the field, which a man found and hid; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” (Matthew 13:44) Man o man is that ever true! If you make this discovery for yourself, you will never be the same again!

If you would like to talk, you can reach me by email at PatClark@TheGraceCompanies.com

You can also view a version of the Four Spiritual Laws, which I found so helpful, by using this link: www.4laws.com