According to John 6:44, “No one can come to me (Jesus) unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.” I was called, not by my choice, or even my expectancy, but by God’s drawing me of His own will. It wasn’t until I was about 33years old, but 2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” In about my 33rd year of life, I heard a knock-Revelation 3:20 ”Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” I looked out the door, and……here’s the story.

I was born a Mormon and raised a Mormon in Utah. At age 13 I was zealous for religion and for the
god of Mormonism, eager to please him and my family and community. At age 15 I rebelled against Mormonism and my parents and my community. I told everyone, “I’m tired of being perfect.” At age 19 I became agnostic, believing there was likely no way to know about God’s existence, and I’d wait for a later time to decide or until evidence came forward to substantially support it. At age 21 I was involved deeply and self-destructively in sin. At this point I was becoming more adamant about atheism and becoming more a proponent of that. After the Mormons tracked me down and sent people to talk to me, I took my records out which, in their language, they called an excommunication. This meant little to me since I had no belief in it anyway. At about this time, my husband and I started dating. Within a year, we moved in together. I started to have more “morals” at this point and was encouraged because my husband hadn’t seemed to judge me like everyone else did. We were married a couple years later, and I was so grateful to be married to another “atheist” since that seemed so rare in my world. A year or two later, we moved to California, away from Utah because I didn’t want to raise children there.

Within several months of moving, we became pregnant with our first child. We had our next child two years
later. I was raising them up to be atheist, but always reassuring them to think for themselves and believe what they wanted. Though young, they were trained not to believe in God. After becoming parents, my anxiety levels rose and our marital bliss soured. Divorce was talked of often and anger, frustration, and tears were common. The pressures of an immoral world and hypocrisy seemed to be invading on our family life as people kept insisting that what seemed so wrong to us was not so bad but normal. I kept getting told to relax about it and accept things as they were. I decided to take a diet from all these voices, and I told my husband I didn’t want any more movies with sex and violence in our home.

So one night my husband suggested a movie (not rated R)called “Fireproof” which from the trailers looked like an action movie with an encouraging message about marriage. We rented it, but to our disappointment, we found out it was a “preachy” Christian movie made rather amateurishly. We were making fun of each other and my husband was poking at me accusing me of crying at one point. But one of the lines really did get to me - (Father talking to his son) “God loves you, even though you don't deserve it. Even though you've rejected Him. Spat in His face. God sent Jesus to die on the cross for your sin, because He loves you.” I knew I had “spat in Jesus’ face” yet he was here inviting me, a non-deserving sinner to be forgiven and to be in relationship with Him. Talk about being humbled and ashamed. I hadn’t even asked for this invitation, yet God extended it to me. Romans 10:20 “I was found by those who did not seek me; I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.”

That night after the movie my husband and I shared a common question: were we wrong about God? After one of our most in depth conversations ever about anything meaningful we both agreed that we would become seekers and pursue the intense feeling we were having further. The way we felt that night was so real, intense and full of overwhelming love. We felt so close to each other that night.

Over the next year and a half I actively researched several religions and visited different churches. I spent every spare moment reading and looking for information so I could make “my” choice. After over a year and
a half of this, I was no closer to “deciding” the truth than before. So here’s the short story. I didn’t ever get to “decide” the truth. It wasn’t mine to decide. If you want truth, there is only one source, and that is God. He is the one who “decides”. We only decide what to believe, which doesn’t mean anything unless our belief is in the truth which is found in Jesus Christ. My intelligence, research, pleading meant nothing when I didn’t ask God and listen to and trust Him alone for truth. On a last ditch effort to find the truth, I went to a small community church where a lady prayed for me with great honesty before God, asking Him to show me the truth in the next three weeks because, as she told Him, I was angry, frustrated, and tired of searching. In the next three weeks various things happened that opened my eyes. The truth was not what I had tried to make it to be. A Christian missionary explained John15 to me that day, and my eyes started to open like they hadn’t ever before. It all made sense now. How could I do anything, even find the truth without the blood of Jesus running in my veins, for as John 15 says “4Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.   5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. “

Now I was starting to understand that I couldn’t figure out the truth without God’s help, without Him enabling me. John 6:65 says “He went on to say, “This is why I told you that no one can come tome unless the Father has enabled them.” It took me about another month before I got up the courage to finally accept Jesus into my heart and actually commit my life and heart to Him and follow His lead. There have been many trials since then, but I have hope in the promise of the Bible in John 10:27-29“27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. “

I want to testify, there is only one source of truth, God our
Savior and Jesus Christ. Amen.

(Verses taken from the NIV via www.biblegateway.com)

Rachel