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Sorry about the length, I started and couldn't stop:
I was baptized as an infant in a Methodist Church, my parents were unbelievers. My mom was and is a new-age occultist. In my early teens I played with Ouija boards and Tarot cards but got bored with them. In my later teens I dreamed spiritual dreams and attended Catholic churches. I began to play organs in churches of all kinds and thought that music was the only reason to go to church.
I also farmed during that time. I listened to J. Vernon McGee on the tractor radio and made fun of him by imitating his discourse on Hagar the handmaiden. I worked in Iraq and read the Bible for the first time because I wanted to know about the land. I visited Ur and bought snacks from a small shop near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates (named Abraham's Store). I thought the Bible was interesting for history and that Jesus really existed and that I was OK because I acknowledged that fact. I also bought a concordance and began to learn a little Greek so I could study Paul's letters, but I didn't follow through on that. In short, I believed that Christianity was good for those who really needed it, but I resented anybody coming up to me as asking me directly if I believed Jesus was Lord. Of course he was, I'd say, in a general and far off sort of sense. But not right now and not for me here.
I fell into ever increasing sin and was living a fairly fun life in the sense of adventure and pleasure. I married, divorced, remarried, and tried to be a moral and neutral person. I briefly thought that Ayn Rand demonstrated that one could be moral without God, but then I realized that her morality broke down personally and in theory because, at the bottom of everything, man reverts to nastiness.
My wife was converted before me. Her friend had kept telling her that the Bible was the Word of God. My wife told me one day that she opened up Genesis and by the 3rd verse she said to herself, "Uhoh, Cindy is right. This is the Word of God." A few days later, she said that while she was walking it hit her that her life was not her own, but was owned by God, and that Jesus Christ was her present and sovereign Lord.
As Jacob did with Joseph, I sort of scoffed, but I kept these things in my heart. I knew she was right, but I could not bring myself to publicly say the same. One week later, when elders from the local EFC church came to our house to interview my wife (she wanted to join the church), my resistance completely dissolved as well. I knew the truth and publicly acknowledged it to them. I felt like all my life was meant for that moment.
My wife and I studied scripture daily, read lots of books, and became more knowledgeable about theology. After a year or so, we left the EFC because we didn't like the sloppy theology coming through the praise band songs.
We worshipped for a few years with a Brethren Assembly who took scripture very seriously (by the way, I first heard of the regulative principle of worship from them). Eventually, however, we missed expository preaching and ultimately found our way to a wonderful Reformed Baptist Church. One question many asked us was when we had come to know the doctrines of grace. It seemed an odd question because what is called Calvinism seemed to be the straightforward teaching of the Bible that we had read for ourselves over and over. We were never very impressed with dispensationalism because we tried to read the Bible in its own context.
God is good, he saved my wife and me in our middle age. We both acknowledge that we were tremendously wicked and like to be undone, even though our circumstances were comfortable.
Vic
[Edited on 11-23-2005 by victorbravo]
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