Who Never Heard of God?

Who never heard of God? I met such a lady some years back. Born in Baffin land, 400 miles south of the North Pole, she admitted, “Only after becoming a Christian did I know inner satisfaction.”

When her husband died, she took her orphan child home to Aberdeen, Scotland and waited for opportunity to return home to Baffin land. Once back in civilization, she admittedly “got lost.” Eventually; she found herself in America, where she became a lecturer.

On moving to Indianapolis, IN she found a home just two blocks from Glendale Church of God. On Sunday she went to church to hear the music and singing. There, she met my friend through the years, E. Joe Gilliam. She referred to her experience as happening on what she called the “quiet day every now and then.” On returning home, she announced “I’ve been to church!” adding, “We’ve been going ever since.”

Her growing understanding brought increasing faith and she became a devout Christian. By the time I heard her speak to our pastor’s conference, some time before her death, she recognized that “God found me a long time before I knew he was looking for me.”

I thought that story was the most beautiful I had ever heard! It is also the ageless story of the centuries. It describes how God finds the unfound. It becomes the history of real people discovering failure, admitting it, and finding faith.

It is no sin to fail! It is a sin to trip over your failure and not use it to good advantage to find faith. Admitting failure positions one to face one’s problems and one’s possibilities. There came a day when I had to take a hard look at myself and admit to myself that I was a failure. I was bitterly disappointed in myself. Only slowly did the realization become clear: “You are what Christ came into the world to die for.”

That realization of personal failure became a revelation of personal faith, faith in a God who already knew and loved me, faith in a community of believers that accepted me with the same Grace by which they had been accepted, faith in a revelation that opened the door for a personal resurrection.

This is walkingwithwarner@blogspot.com suggesting 

it is never a failure to fall, but it is a failure to fall and just lay there. So, why not make today the first day of a new life with the God who has been searching for you all of your life?