Was Your Hour Like Mine?

I used to get anxious singing Amazing Grace.

It was all because of a couple of lines at the end of the second verse: “…how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.”  

They reminded me that I apparently lacked something every other faithful believer in Jesus Christ seemed able to share—that is, an explicit personal account of his spiritual conversion.  In other words, everyone who’d been “saved” seemed to be able to recall that experience at a specific place and point in time.

[What does it actually mean to be “saved?”  see: Different fruit, Same Good News.]

As a result, every time I heard the testimony of a brother describing the precise time he decided to follow Christ, I questioned the reality of my ever having actually made that same decision myself, since I couldn’t recall exactly when it was.

Every idea I could think of to fix the situation only seemed to deepen my feelings of inadequacy as a partaker of His divine nature.  I couldn’t bring myself to ask anybody if my faith in Christ was real, given its nebulous origin.  I was afraid of the answer.

So, I kept things to myself.

But even though I can’t remember that “…hour I first believed,” there was a moment in time I became convinced that it didn’t really matter.  And I think it’s worth mentioning here that I was never persuaded to that end because of an answered question.

In fact, I never needed to ask, because, by learning what Bible text actually does say, I was also able to determine what it doesn’t say.

[How did I learn what Bible text actually does say? see: Inductive Study? Sounds Like a Plan.]

That’s the remarkable thing about gaining knowledge.  Data isn’t just compiled, confidence is also increased.

And confidence is critical for me to develop as a disciple of Jesus Christ.  For how can I effectively wield the gifts God has granted me without it?   Or by what means does the hesitant man encourage his brother?

More importantly though, if I can’t secure enough confidence in my own ability to understand the what the Scriptures say, it’s highly unlikely I’ll possess the wisdom to discern who actually can.

It’s serious enough for someone else to challenge my faith with a baseless claim.

So why would I allow myself to do it?