How it happened.
Many folk are brought
in the Christian faith but reject it as they grow up. I did not. Here
is an outline of how I came to a faith I was to retain. It does not
include the various contributions and nudges it received from folk
like a milkman Andy Wilson and a scholar like Charles Martin. It also
does not include the many touches of grace that God has given me.
As a child of seven,
already knowledgeable about the Bible stories and brought up to pray
and read the Bible each day I was sent to some children’s meetings
at the local Gospel Hall. We were given tracts. I was given “Safety,
Certainty and Enjoyment” by George Cutting. It compared life to a
railway journey and divided the passengers into three classes, those
who knew where they were going, those who did not know and those who
did not care. I got my mum to read it to me and in a deep desire for
certainty I decided to follow Christ. After such a childlike
conversion I was ripe for rebellion. The miracle was that though
rebellion threatened it never came. I joyfully took my stand as a
believer. At Grammar School. I argued each point with my RE teacher.
The threat of rebellion had to wait until my University years.
As a student I
contemplated rebellion against what I had accepted in my childhood. I
had come against the Judeo-Christian moral code and realised I could
not fulfil it. This produced an agony of guilt. If I could not
satisfy God I would do away with Him. The trouble was that creation
got in the way; not its intricacies and interconnectedness but its
existence. Matter required a maker and laws required a law giver. The
stone exists and when I throw it into the air it inevitably returns
to earth. God had to stay.
The challenges of moral
inadequacy developed in my soul throughout my teens. It was a verse
in Romans that came to my rescue. Romans 10:13 (AV) “For whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. I gave into
the God who had given His Son to die an unimaginably horrid death to
deal with a man like me. The man endorsed the faith of the child.
Peter M.
Grinham 3rd August 2017
