Assurance at Last

May 15.  In 1961 it was a Sunday.  I attended services at Michigan Center Bible Church, where I had been attending evangelistic meetings since Thursday.   At the conclusion of the message, they asked everyone who had made a decision for Christ during the week to come forward to the front of the church.  They began singing, "Where He leads me, I will follow".  As the congregation sang, suddenly I felt a surge of courage.  That meant me.  I had not registered a decision with the church, but I had certainly made one.  Already that decision had brought a thirst for God's Word that I had never had before.  But it had not yet brought assurance.  Since Thursday, how many times had I told God that I was indeed a sin lost and condemned?  How many times and in how many words had I pleaded with Him to save me?  I understand now that He did that the very first moment I cried out to Him, but back then I did not have that understanding.  I yearned for the assurance they had sung about in church on Thursday night.

Suddenly I found the courage to do something absolutely atypical for me.  I walked down that church aisle and stood there with a group of others who had also come to Christ during the week.  That clinched it.  I knew I had come to saving faith--not that it happened that very moment, but that I felt it that very moment.  Assurance just flooded my soul.  From then on my prayers to move on to other things.

Shortly after that, I was baptized there.  Although my parents had taken me through a baptismal ceremony as a baby, I saw in the Bible that people were baptized after coming to faith in Christ.  I took that step, too.  Then slowly, subtly, God began to change me, and the horrible shadows caused by my inordinate shyness began to lift.   More about that tomorrow.