My Come to Jesus Story

One of my first memories is me telling my mom I could live forever. All I had to do, I told her, was not get shot by a robber or die in a fire. I can’t imagine how troubling it must have been for her to tell me the truth. Since I wasn’t raised in a Christian home, the truth didn’t involve a lesson about Heaven or Jesus. Life ended when the clock ran out.

From that point on, I heard a steady tick tock in my head, the sound of me moving closer to death. Late at night: tick tock. Accidentally swallowing shampoo: tick tock. And especially on airplanes: tick tock.

I lived that way for 23 years – through high school, through college, though traveling abroad. I met people from all over the world, from different nationalities and different belief systems. At times all of these belief systems made sense. But there was something that stood out about Jesus.

One night at my parents’ house, a year out of college, I decided to find out what that was.

I wrote down everything I knew about human nature – about selfishness and insecurity and about being wrought with perfection, about being obsessed with perfection.

Then I wrote down everything I knew about Jesus. I wrote down things Christian friends had told me, people I knew and loved. I wrote down things I’d been told by strangers on the street.

I thought of athletes who had thanked Jesus after a big win. I thought of a free Life of Jesus comic book I’d stumbled upon as a little kid, and I thought of the story it told. I thought about how everything about Christ pointed to perfection. Perfection and love.

Somewhere in there, I started to believe in Him. Late at night, sitting at my parents’ dinner table at my childhood home outside of Philadelphia, Jesus made logical sense. Jesus was perfect, and I was not. And I was fine with that.

But there was one problem: I didn’t know what to do next. Was I a Christian now? Did I have to say a specific prayer? I decided I would figure all of that out in the morning.

Then morning came. I’d made a rational argument for Jesus the night before, but this day started the same as any other: I woke up and slumped across the hall to turn on the TV.

There was one major difference, though: when I turned on the TV this time, I saw planes crashing into the World Trade Center – the same World Trade Center, where I had friends working, two hours north of where I lived. Two hours south, a plane hit The Pentagon. In my mind, Philadelphia had a big target on it right in the middle. The world was ending.

Tick, tock.

I’d spent much of my life hearing that tick-tock, wondering when my world was going to end. Is it going to happen now? What about now? Suddenly now was now.

I didn’t know what else to do except to pray. I prayed and prayed and prayed. And prayed. I kept waiting for some slow motion moment when all the world made sense and I heard Christ, in a deep booming voice would declare me fit to be saved. If anything I felt the opposite: I wasn’t fit to be saved. I was fit to die. Only when this truth hit me – I’m not fit to be saved – could I actually be saved. Logically I had realized this the night before. Eyes shut, knees on the floor, hands clasped in prayer – only at this point did Jesus make emotional sense to me. Only at this point did I begin my relationship with Him.

That was ten years ago today.

It was a day of somber stories, of people running around in absolute despair as our country was attacked.

It was also the day the clock stopped ticking. The day my relationship with Jesus began.

It is a stormy and tragic day in the history books. But for me…well, in a lot of ways, that stormy, tragic day was the best day of my life. The clock doesn’t tick anymore. Praise the Lord for that. Praise the Lord for life.