What Are We Here For?

Life before Christ really had no purpose.

My life had no direction. I had plenty of friends, but none that seemed to be any more concerned with a meaningful life than what I had. I shared their sentiments. Even when I left Charlotte to come to Little River, those beliefs followed me. I continued the same lifestyle as I had in Charlotte: lots of drinking, and partying.

Then I had to have surgery on my shoulder with the ensuing recovery time at home. The pastor at Little River Baptist Church was visiting my mother-in-law and stopped by to see me also. He talked to me about salvation, and what it took to have it. I dismissed all this at first because I believed that I was a good person, and God would certainly look at my life and admit me to Heaven. What a shock to be told that one sin is too many for God to accept anybody into His Heaven. And what a shock to be told that the alternative was eternity in hell, condemned to eternal damnation. The pastor left me some material from Billy Graham's ministry, and a couple of tracts to read. I had been sitting there day after day, not able to go anywhere, nothing to do, so I read the material. Eternity in Heaven, or eternity in hell? The idea that life was just a snap of the fingers in the eternal plan overwhelmed me. I had always known I had a soul, and I knew I would have an eternal existence, and now in the darkness of my living room, I felt this great surge of excitement that all I had to was say yes and surrender, and my life would change. Nobody was there with me. I just prayed to God for forgiveness, and told Him I would serve Him the rest of my life. At 58 years old, the first week of October in 2004, I gave my life to Christ. That wave of relief that washed over me was the Holy Spirit moving into my heart, and I never looked back.

Where the life I led before had no purpose, it certainly did now. It opened up a whole new community of fellow believers to me who guided me and taught me the direction God had for me.

There is no dramatic story to tell about my being accepted by Christ into His family. All I know is that now I have a sense of purpose, and a knowledge of fulfillment in life that never existed before. God has used me to help in Haiti, West Virginia, and locally in many opportunities to help those less blessed than me, and to give them good news that what I have, they can have.

I know that having given my life to Christ, He has a lot for me to do for Him. I know that each day I am growing in His image, and that one day He will call me home to serve Him directly in Heaven. I can look back at how my life has gone, and see how He was never not in my life. He had a purpose for me before He saved me. It just took longer for me than many to let Him into my heart. But now that He is there, I know He will never let go.