The idea to write about this came to me in the usual way, out of the blue. Just before getting into bed one night, this thought came, and soon -- other thoughts.
I am an ‘expert’ on this subject as much of my life was without Jesus, and part of it even without God, or so I thought.
There was a period of a few years in my 40’s that I didn’t believe there was a God in Heaven. I have written about this, but what was a mystery is now clearer. I know now that although I thought God was not in my life, God was not separated from me. He was there all the time and waiting for me to know Him. And that was when I realized that there just had to be a God who created such in a well ordered-universe, and populated our perfect world with beings of incredible complexity. I concluded that it would not be just unlikely, but impossible for this without God. Then prayers were begun thanking God for our good life and good health. Seldom did I utter any other prayer, or ask for His help. I did not know that friends were praying for me. I did believe that my mother was praying from Heaven though.
It took another thirty years to ‘discover’ Jesus. Again He was waiting for recognition, but that didn’t stop Him from being a part of my life. I know now that Christ was there helping me all the time. You can possibly imagine how ashamed I was when this realization finally came to me. I was sad that I had failed to credit Him for all the great happenings in my life. But I got past this with much prayer, and became overjoyed that I was finally feeling that I belonged to Him.
Those who have no room in their life for God do not realize what a life-changing event it might be to worship God and come to Jesus as their Savior.
Some say humans feel emptiness in their lives without Jesus, without God. I cannot attest to this as my life went on during the period when I did not know God. I was happy, had a great family and a successful career. The only thing I know now is that I made some mistakes that would not have happened if I had prayed about them beforehand. More importantly, we may not have lost our first son. Otherwise my life went on just fine without God. So I did not feel the emptiness that Christian writers mention.
Now, I cannot imagine my life without Christ. I now know what would have been my ultimate fate though. Thanks to a loving Christian lady, a revelation, and the book “Heaven Is So Real” I found Jesus. It has been a great trip in the spiritual sense. But it has not always been easy in a physical sense. The Bible says that Christians must suffer for their faith. I wondered about this as until the last several years, my life was idyllic in most ways. What is the suffering we must endure, and when does it start, I wondered? The loss of our first son didn’t affect our lives too much as we thought he would return someday. After being influenced by some bad people, he simply went on his own way after graduating with honors from McGill University, and being well liked in his first job. Could this have been altered if I had known Jesus and called on Him for help?
During the last several years my wife Anita has had some severe medical problems. This has materially affected our lives. Her infirmities might be beyond my endurance if I had them, but she remains cheerful. Are these the ‘sufferings’ we must endure? I simply do not know. Personally I have had a number of serious physical problems, but with each one, they have been healed by prayer and doing what was indicated to help myself. One was a completely blocked main artery. My body simply grew a replacement main artery. The cardiologist said that my good physical condition and exercise helped. I believe that the Lord intervened to help without me even knowing. Many other physical problems healed miraculously. The latest example was about eight weeks ago when I twisted my hip while working in the yard. This nearly laid me up, as for weeks it was painful to walk and painful to try to sleep. I had prayed about it, but finally told the Lord that I believed He would cure it, and soon…and He did. I exercised to help, but since the pain had gone on for weeks even with exercise, and then suddenly stopped, it had to be when I really believed He would help.
Where does this lead us? My conclusion is that when we know God and truly have Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have the ‘peace beyond understanding’ that Jesus promised. We may not have peace in this earthly life though, as God does not promise this. But He does give us the strength to bear whatever occurs. We do have peace in knowing where we will spend eternity, and that is certainly the most important peace we could ever have.
But for those who don’t have God in their lives, I believe that most of them do not miss Him in a sense that would cause them to suddenly believe. It is up to us as Christians to spread the Word of Salvation. But only God can bring Himself into their lives so that they worship Him. Short of meeting in Heaven those who we have tried to introduce to the Lord, we may never know what influence we have had. And that is OK; we don’t need earthly rewards or recognition for doing this. We just need the warm feeling inside that we have tried, and this comes automatically from God.