JESUS CHRIST AND THE FLIG

I was raised in a Christian home. Some of my very earliest recollections are from church or Sunday School. (I recall my Sunday School teacher, Helen McNeese, holding me on her lap when I cried for my mother. I couldn’t have been more than three or four. I remember the white lace dress she wore.) We attended the First Methodist Church of Slippery Rock. When I was growing up people in Slippery Rock had four choices for church - two Presbyterian, one Catholic, and one Methodist. Mom and Dad were both quite active in the church. Mom was always involved in the music program and both my parents taught Sunday School and served on boards or committees at one time or another. I suppose that I was in my early teens before I began to question why I had to get up each Sunday morning to go to church. The good news was that many of my friends went to our church and I enjoyed seeing them there. When I reached the age of about 13 or 14 I was allowed to go to church by myself. The church was close enough that I could walk and my friend, Bob Watson, and I would go to the early service and then stop by the Isaly’s restaurant for a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll before Sunday School. I thought I was a really independent “man-about-town.” On many occasions they would ask Bob and me to take up the offering at the early service and I used to raise some eyebrows when the high heels on my “Beatle boots” clip-clopped on the tile floors as we walked down front.

Mom and Dad were generally pretty close to the minister and his family. This was due both to their outgoing nature and their involvement in church service. I remember two in particular (Chic Dietrich and Hugh Crocker) that our two families actually vacationed together. Hugh was our minister when I was in my teens and he had a real impact on me. He was such a fun guy with a great sense of humor. It was the first time I had ever known a minister as “a real human being.” Before Hugh a minister was just someone who preached at you on Sunday.

At that time in my life, Christianity was pretty much about being a good person and refraining from sin. All sin was bad but there were certain “big sins” that you really had to stay away from. The biggies were swearing (anything stronger than darn and heck), smoking, drinking, premarital sex, parental disobedience, and not going to church. I knew the Bible pretty well as I had heard all the stories since I was old enough to understand the language. I heard them in church, Sunday School, “Junior League” after school on Wednesdays, and at youth group Sunday nights. The one message that I really never picked up on in the Methodist Church was that God sent Christ to us so that we could have a relationship with Him. This personal relationship business was a little foreign at that point in my life. God seemed to be a little “impersonal.”

After I met my wife and began to attend her church (the Mt Zion Baptist Church), where her father was the minister, I began to hear more about this relationship with God through Christ. The Methodist Church had preached that as long as you believed that Christ was indeed God’s son, you were a Christian. Pastor Ketzel (as I referred to him at that time) opined that a personal relationship with Christ led to more of a joyful, “abundant” life now as well as a guarantee of an eternal fellowship with God. It made sense to me and I sought the relationship by praying that I recognized that God was holy and I was sinful. I admitted that I needed a savior and I asked Jesus to forgive my sins, to be that savior and become a part of my daily life. My whole world didn’t miraculously change overnight but I began a process of becoming a better Christian and a better person, little by little and day by day. I certainly didn’t stop my sinful ways. I know I never will but I recognize that I need help to avoid sin. Gradually I began to rely on God to solve more and more of my problems. I was turning more and more of my life over to Him.

Many people come to know Christ when they are down and out. When they hit rock bottom they reach out to Him because He’s the only one there. It was different with me. Not only did I never hit rock bottom, I was never even close. I chose to follow Christ because I recognized that He had His hand on me from the beginning. I began to think about the circumstances of my life and whether I had ever done anything to deserve what I had. I determined that I hadn’t. I had great parents and a wonderful childhood, I never lacked for anything that I really needed, my health was excellent, I graduated from college debt free, I got a great job right out of college, I married the girl of my dreams and eventually had two healthy boys. I could go on and on. At every turn it seemed God had good things in store for me.

Because God had blessed me in so many ways that I didn’t deserve I yielded control of most aspects of my life to him. The one part of my life I maintained personal control of was my career. I had always been good at what I did professionally and I honestly never thought of seeking God’s help in that area. What a huge error on my part - not seeking God’s direction in the area of my life where I spent the most time and the aspect most important for the support of my family.

When my career was in serious jeopardy due to fraudulent accusations by a disgruntled subordinate I finally got smart. I told God that if I were fired from my present job I could do just about anything else with His help. From now on I would trust him in every single aspect of my life. Not only did I keep my job but God blessed me even more richly thereafter than He had before.

I can’t imagine anyone in this world who has been blessed more richly than I have been. These blessings have come purely from the grace of God. That’s why I do my best to honor Him with the life I live each day. I’m not very good at that but He continues to bless me anyway. That’s the kind of Father He is.