Full life for witness

Every time I remember the day of my conversion, I cannot help but be moved with gratitude. I was confused by the world, but was ignorant of it and was an intellectual believer in all invisible deities. The only true god, I was myself. When you reach a certain age believing you have had some success in life without the apparent intervention of God, then why believe in something that you had not needed to live until now? Why complicate my existence by filling myself with religious commitments that would occupy my free time and my Sundays of rest and impious celebrations?

I never had a real awareness of my need for the living God, but I was a presumed guardian of other gods who do not speak, hear, see, or act; therefore I was just like them (Psalm 115). From so much eagerness in life and at work, there were times when my standard of living became 100 times higher than that of the average Cuban. Why did I need Christ in my life?

But the Lord had me in His plans. It is amazing to think that God has plans for the sinner! I sinner? Why, if I am a good man, if I do not harm anyone and even harbor noble feelings for people in my heart? So I thought, justifying my worldly disorders. However, He never tired of sending me signals, of knocking on my door raising his voice. While I continued to put flower vases to my "protective" deities, He, pious and loving, sent me generous messengers with love verses and did not stop trying to get my attention. Those flesh and blood apostles, Christian men and women who constantly preached to me, brought me the message of salvation and I ignored it, kept silent, rejected it, resisted it ... until my worst crisis came. God uses every way to make his plans come true. Me, miserable, disobedient, worldly, proud, in the plans of the God of Abraham, Joshua, Paul and of Jesus, God himself incarnate?

A great Hindu poet, Rabindranath Tagore, once said: "If you close the door to your mistakes, you will leave out the truth." That is a great truth. As I did not want to see my mistakes - I was not even aware that I was a guy who carried a large bag full of human miseries - the truth seemed very relative.

In the middle of a total crisis; the loss of work and a serious dysfunction in the family, came the collapse. My emotional stability, my marriage and everything that truly has value for the human being was at stake. One of those messengers of the Lord approached me once more and said: - "In Christ you will find comfort, seek it!" - And in those days of confinement, suffering and pain, "the messenger" sent me a bible and the The Word of God began to carve the soul in such a real way that God, in his mercy, revealed to me the true face of my sins, my rebellions, my pride, my false self-esteem.

Those early mornings that I call early mornings "without eyes" -because I could not sleep from suffering- became vigils of reading and something similar to prayer. Until one night, in my room empty of affections, when I reached Matthew 9.13 "... because I have not come to call the just but sinners", I felt that the Lord clothed me with his mantle of mercy and I lowered all my self-sufficiency until the knees to give myself repentant and definitely defeated at his feet. There was like a light inside me, it was like a balm with the scent of heaven.

Since then, it has rained a lot. The end of the story was the complete restoration of everything he had supposedly lost - job, family, life. Do you know Job? God did something similar to me. For Him there is nothing impossible. Christ changed the perspectives of my life because repentance brings liberation. I knew I was forgiven and I began to savor the honeys of grace in full joy and also in many stumbles. The old man constantly struggles to get out again because sin has good friends who are seductive, treacherous, seekers of the Christian's destruction: the love of money, the pleasures of the world, disobedience. It is a war that only the Holy Spirit can face. That is why Christ overcame all the evil in the world on the Cross by bearing the guilt that I and every sinner deserved.

God has His heavenly quiver full of sycamores (fig trees) so that we can go up to see Jesus when He passes by and accept His invitation to dine with Him (Luke 19, story of Zacchaeus). I toppled a few of those fig trees before deciding to go up to them to look at him and listen to his command to come down - to my knees - and follow him. Jesus entered my temple of strange gods and filled me with his grace with his sufficiency. My sycamore was the crisis, an incomplete life; with a house, but without a home; with a wife, but without marriage; with children, but without arrows to shoot into the air (Psalm 127. 3-5) so that God would be glorified in my life. What is the sycamore tree that Jesus is using for you to see? Have you seen it happen? Do you think yourself enough to get by in life without the symphony of Jesus in your heart?

This world makes you promises, offers you dreams and well-being with guaranteed success. I fell into that trap and looked for deities to help me make them come true: a god (with a small letter) to open my ways ("I am the Way", said Jesus - John 14.6-), another god to keep me of dangers and fears ("I will not leave you, nor will I forsake you," says the Lord -He 13.5b-), and others to use at my convenience. This is how the world goes, from god to god, from bad to worse, from its sufficiency to its own exaltation, denying the one and true Lord of all things, the fullness in whom the Father was pleased so that in Him all could coexist for your salvation and for mine. He is enough.

If your heart is looking for rest, humble yourself and cry out to him: He listens to the heart that humbles itself. If you don't have peace; He is the prince of peace who longs for you to rest in his grace. If you believe that you can no longer, He can give you to drink the water of life that will quench your thirst, refresh your humanity and make you grow wings like eagles to live a full and abundant life (John 4.14). Come to Christ and you will not regret it!

Since then my family and I have been spiritually blessed more than we deserve and have seen God's hand every day since Christ entered our home.

Beloved, in Jesus there is freedom and love. Do not hide behind what you are not yet ready to accept his love and come to his feet. Just a little faith is enough. He loves you just the way you are and wants only you to come to Him. Give Him a chance. He just wants your heart in the condition it is in today. Don't wait for crises to bow your face, test the strength of your knees, and humiliate yourself. He waits, He longs for your embrace and your surrender. He can be your shepherd, your sustainer, your great Lord.

God bless you!

(Taken from the author's personal conversion testimony)