Thursday, February 01, 2007

The last, the least, the little, the lost...

Originally posted on August 30, 2006

My son's best "Christian friend" has purple hair (or at least that was the color when I last saw him). So...is he a...Christian? You betcha... He reminds me a lot of myself at that age.

I came to Christ because a fellow student in my junior high school had been told by her pastor to find the "least likely" people to become a Christian and invite them to a revival meeting. Guess who she invited? Me and a friend of mine. Out of the entire class, she chose the two of us. She had no idea that on the outside I was a mess but on the inside I had been searching for God for years. The Author of the Great Romance had been calling, I just didn't know where to go.

I did attend that revival meeting and I did go down that aisle (it was that kind of church) and I was gloriously changed in an instant. I mean, my spiritual DNA changed my physical DNA, there was that much of a transformation. Not that it showed up immediately but it certainly did over time. I'm not sure there is scientific evidence that such a thing would occur but there is life evidence.

I remember in my former (corporate) life, sitting at a table surrounded by the senior management of a major corporation. I was there with my boss to assist them in long term planning. I'm not sure why that particular day stays with me but it happened twenty years ago and I can still remember it as if it were yesterday. I remember looking around that table and for a moment, thinking I've come a long way baby. I don't think God appreciates such thinking. In the next moment, it was like He opened a curtain in my mind and showed me what I would be without Him. It was so real, it took me awhile to get my attention back on what was expected of me that day.

Perhaps this is why I love kids with purple hair. My former pastor used to tell me it was because I have the gift of mercy. Probably, but I think it's also because I started out as the last, the least, the little, the lost. So did everyone else, come to think of it.

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