11-5-01

Today I am thinking back upon my life thus far and my path to salvation--my coming to know God. I've just been reading about 2 types of conversion experience: the "Paul" and the "Timothy." One is dramatic and marked by an abrupt change. The other is subtle, a gradual "coming to know" as one is raised in the Church. So I look back at my life and I see elements of each. I see a young boy raised in the Church, baptized and taught the ways of the Lord. I see a teenager living to please himself. I see a young adult yearning for something more. I see a man whose soul is at peace but who still longs for intimacy. And thru it all, I clearly see the hand of God: naming me, claiming me, and holding me tightly. For so long I thought I had the control in the relationship, that it was me who held the reigns. In recent years I have slowly come to understand that it is all God. God's is the initiative, I respond. God chooses me, I do not choose God. Rather, I respond to God in love because God first reached out and loved me. What an amazing thing! If this is so, then it was in the yearning of my young adult years that I really became aware of that extended love and responded in kind. Oh, I had certainly felt the ache and the angst before as a youth, but it finally crystalized into a response. My human spirit, calling out for connection with the Holy Spirit, finally found that for which it was calling. But it was there all along. God had marked me and chosen me in my infant baptism as his own, and God had kept me safe in his grasp, despite my efforts to escape at times, until such a time that I recognized and was ready to respond to that love. Praise be to you, O God, for your lovingkindness in my life! For your patience and your faithfulness and your pursuit of me.