The Long Way Home

Well, if there was anyone that had a head start at the Christian life it was me. I was born in the "sleepy little town of Pascagoula Ms." --you can hum the Ray Stevens song now if you know it;-)on a warm--o.k. mom--a sweltering hot summer night in August of 1975. My dad was a recently "sold out", surrendered Baptist preacher in search of a pulpit to proclaim the Gospel in and my mother was, as I just found out for the first time two days ago, a new believer herself that very same year. Right out of the starting gate I had a jump on the Christian life that many people do not have with Godly parents. So as a young tot I heard the gospel from every angle possible. One of my very first memories that I can recall is sitting in my daddy's lap in a church service. I can still remember it vividly. He was sitting with his leg crossed wearing plaid polyester pants (BTW yuck! I guess that was the style then heehee) and I was sitting in the little hole created by the cross of his legs. Man that was the best seat in the house! Although my dad might beg to differ, I was perfectly content to be there. There was such an blissful, innocent, comforting, peace there. Looking back now I can see why. I was ignorant of the corrupt sinful world that I was in and I was within arms reach of the only security that I thought I ever needed. It wasn't too long until that cozy lap was replaced with a pew as my daddy found a church to serve in and I became an official PK (Preachers Kid for those who aren't one:-) Now, growing up as a preachers kid has it's pros and cons. After all, not everybody gets to swim in the baptistery when there daddy's filling it for the Sunday services. (man I think I can still feel that whoopin;-) But on the con side you learn to play the religious game really well, as do alot of so called Christians that aren't PK's. You can answer all of the questions, know how to sound sincere in the presence of the brethren, sing in the choir, and even pray a perfect prayer. After all isn't this the expected character of the preachers kids? Now I wasn't just a player in this sham game, I was the star athlete. I knew all of the plays and even a few trick plays as well. I had years of watching the team and memorizing the playbook. I only had one problem. The same problem that everyone else in this world has and that is: "for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God". Fifteen years I played the game flawlessly until one day at a youth retreat in Texas/Louisiana I was faced with the reality of the penalty of my sin and I asked the Lord to forgive me and save me--and He did!! This however was not the end. My years of imitating the real thing caught up to me and perverted my new walk with Christ. I had to learn the true shape and form of myself. It's not easy thing to do to truthfully face yourself and identify exactly how far short you really have fell and to let the Lord change you. So as the Lord began to draw me closer to Him and show me these issues, I didn't like what I saw. So just like when the Lord called Jonah, I got scared and began to run. I got into all sorts of things--stuff that a follower of Christ has no business doing. Now the leash of God's patience is just shy of His umbrella of grace. He's not going to let us go where His grace cannot cover us but there is a limit to just how far he will let us go before He will intervene. I was running headlong to the outskirts when the lease ran out and boy was it an abrupt stop.;-) Thank the Lord, because I would probably still be running today. I was talking to my wife the other day about this issue of the "boundaries" of God. Far too often we see this fence as a barrier to our freedom instead of as a wall of the Lord's protection for us. This is what God intends it to be. It was in March 1995 that the Lord arrested me with His love (LOL) whether I liked it or not and I began to understand the grace of God. I can't begin to explain the goodness that God has shed on me since then. The Bible says that His mercies are new every morning. He has filled my heart with such comfort and joy and has blessed me with so many things. Now have a beautiful wife (Rachel) and three children (Isaiah, Hannah, and Emma). All three of the kids have cotton white hair just like I did when I was little and Isaiah is a spitting image of me. So as you can expect it's kinda a surreal feeling now when we go to church now and they fuss over who gets to sit in my lap. I pray that they too learn the lesson that I did that the only place of true peace and security is in the lap of our Lord and that they don't take the long way home like I did.