We Really Weren't Stick People
I began life believing in Jesus.
From the time I began to understand words, I heard about Jesus, Who He is and the whole family thing. From my beginning, I knew that right and wrong were defined by the Creator. And from the beginning, I knew I needed Him in my life; it is possible and something I was to pursue. This was basic to life and from the beginning of mine. And, I was a sinner. Oh yeah.
I can't say now with any certainty how much I knew cutting the furniture with a single-edge razor was wrong while watching the stretched fabric separate. But when my parents came in and had that tone in their voices, asking, "Ronnie, did you do that?," it was wrong. I remember that part. Yes, I knew then it was wrong. How did I, probably less than two years old, answer? "Anh anh," while shaking my head. So, right there, before entering the terrible twos, I had two in one. I don't know how I came by the razor; maybe that was another infraction. More than likely it was.
There were numerous "life lessons" added to my earliest years, just by virtue of being an earthling, a descendant of Adam. It doesn't take being a teenager and a fist-shaking, Bible-waving preacher to know guilt. Our home was Bible-centered and peppered with prayer and Christian music. And there was church three times per week, more for special events. And whenever Billy Graham crusades were on TV, they were family functions. And there were other things providing me with biblical morays.
For all of this, there were times the power of the flesh seemed to rule this little fellow. My Davy Crocket t-shirt was impetus for a gun belt with two holsters and silver six-shooters. Dungarees, a cowboy hat and boots were all I needed for "shoot-'em-ups" in the back yard. "Pow! Pow!" Nobody ever got hurt. In fact, I got in trouble, quick as a flash, if I was ever seen pointing one of those silly toys at anyone. Everybody knew those were just toys and still there was something about them that meant they were not to be pointed at anyone. I'd say things Mother would make me take back. Whatever they were, I learned they were not only unacceptable, they were wrong, offensive to Jesus even. Can you imagine the godless today shaking their heads at a little boy being trained like that? What I was taught was right comes from the Creator and opposition comes from the devil. Don't bother with theology right now; I'm telling my story, :- ).
Well before the teen years, the day came when my old, uhm, young, wicked heart, even for a life of believing in Jesus, God and all the rest, started being convicted. Sandwiched between the sheets shortly after 9 pm, sometimes I would think, What if I die tonight? Will I see Jesus? What about the bad things I had done? Sometimes I'd be frightened. My parents had not done me wrong by teaching me the truth. This was favor on me. It didn't harm me one whit. Sometimes I would say something in prayer.
The day came when conviction met with crunch time. The choice was before me. I understood why Jesus died and that he died for me so I wouldn't have to go, you know, downstairs without the stairs. From their little boy, my parents heard, "I need to get saved." They had not been begging me to do this. Likely such a thing would have been wrong in their eyes. My heart condemned me. I knew I had done things that needed forgiving. No, there had been no wirty dirds or nasty magazines, no bad TV shows or beating anybody up. But as my wife has said, "Even good little girls need Jesus." She grew up quite isolated from, pardon the term, the rabble outside her little sphere. "All our righteousness is as filthy rags." "I need to get saved" are the words I said that day. Next thing I knew, we were on six knees and praying, Mother crying, you know. Then there was that scary preacher who leaned the pulpit forward while waving his big pulpit Bible. Here I was before him! I barely remember him looking at me and talking to me with gentle compassion. No Bible waving, no loud bursts of ecclesiastical jargon, no fists.
It would be some eight years until I learned the power of belief is sure. Never was I plagued or anything; likely I didn't think about such matters as a teenager. But I well remember the afternoon I hurried to my bedside and fell to my knees thanking our Father for His security. It was so sweet.
As the years ticked by, doubts about what was done for me that morning on my knees with my parents never showed up. There was no stupid illusion sin would get a free ride. I knew what it says in Hebrews, chastening accompanies those who are loved and who are sons. Oh yeah. But it has been a great comfort knowing with Whom I have belonged.
Of the few movies I've seen through the years, Robert Duvall's (yes, Robert Duvall) "The Apostle" says it for me. I never was Pentecostal, but Duvall's character was in prayer day in and day out. When things were good, when they were bad, he still believed with all his heart he could pray and be heard. "Rev Tevye" in "Fiddler On the Roof" did the same thing. Besides that, of little importance, Duvall looked like all the Appalachian and North Carolina Piedmont preachers I knew: buttoned shirt, tie and fairly tight fitting double-knit slacks. And that rough, outdoorsy look. I could ID with him in that film pretty well, even if I didn't knock a man out of the park with a baseball bat. Sin is ugly whatever face it bears.
The Apostle Paul said it well when he described the battle between flesh and spirit in his epistle to the ekklesia in Rome. We all should be very familiar with it and surely should experience the comfort of knowing the flesh is "the old man." What is there to celebrate? This body of death is ours only for a time and it can be kept under control if we will.
The lyric is wonderful: "There is a fountain filled with blood, flowing from Emmanuel's veins; And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains." It can begin with a small boy and last a lifetime. Oh, the joy of it!
