A few years after starting my personal relationship with the Lord, I unknowingly had focused my attention and respect on my pastor instead of my Savior. After several big disappointments in my church and my pastor, I ran ferociously away from the Lord thinking that He had let me down. I was so hurt that I literally became a self-titled anti evangelist. I spent any free time that I had telling anyone that would listen why they never wanted to have anything to do with God or the church. Through this time though the Lord’s Holy Spirit did not allow me a moment of peace.
One dark rainy morning while driving to work in the dark, I rolled my car into a ditch full of water and was left hanging upside down by my seatbelt with my head under water. When I popped up into an air pocket in the back seat of the car, I was reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Just over a year later, I went to the ER where I was misdiagnosed with an ulcer. One week later I returned to the ER, walking past the front desk into the patient rooms holding my stomach saying “someone please help me, I am dying”. I was! My gallbladder had rotted inside of me and my body cavity was filled with gangrene. My family was called in as the doctor did not believe that I would make it through the surgery. After each of these times, my dad told me very simply saying that the Lord would not allow me to continue the life that I was living and that He would “take me out” if I didn’t give my life back to Him. I listened but was not ready to respond.
Then, several months later, on a Tuesday evening after being at an all-weekend bachelor party, I was alone in my house. I literally felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and I was broken and ashamed. I remember praying and crying out loud to the Lord and telling Him that I knew that I did not deserve His forgiveness but if He would forgive me, that I would serve Him for the rest of my life regardless of what came my way.
He heard my earnest prayer for a walk with Him and He responded in a mighty way. Within 2 weeks, I had a new job in a town that I knew no one. The Lord gave me a new start in a new community and while I fail Him regularly, I press on. I serve a God who deeply desires a close personal relationship with me. Who forgives when I sincerely ask for forgiveness.
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
Rod Fetters
Ossian, Indiana
Book 2: Day 30
GOD STORIES And More
GOD knows and Cares
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