HEARTLIGHT® Magazine: The Caring Touch: "My Testimony"

+m3_u); document.write ("?zoneid=12"); document.write ('&cb=' + m3_r); if (document.MAX_used != ',') document.write ("&exclude=" + document.MAX_used); document.write ("&loc=" + escape(window.location)); if (document.referrer) document.write ("&referer=" + escape(document.referrer)); if (document.context) document.write ("&context=" + escape(document.context)); if (document.mmm_fo) document.write ("&mmm_fo=1"); document.write ("'>"); //]]>-->

ARTICLES

ART & MUSIC

DEVOTIONALS

COMMUNITY

SHOPPING

SEARCH
Support
Contact

o David Lipscomb University in Nashville. I wrestled during these college years with the decision to be a coach or counselor or minister. Some would say I eventually became all three —but I believe the word “minister” means the most to me.

In my third year in college I was wrestling with life’s purpose and meaning, especially whether God loved me and was really willing to forgive me for my sins. I became convinced during a trip to West Lafayette, Indiana that without God, my life had no meaning, no joy, and no hope of life beyond the grave.

Without God, my life had no meaning, no joy, and no hope.

On this trip a friend talked with me for hours about the gospel of Christ. I remember those hours as clearly as if they occurred yesterday. My sinfulness distressed me. I felt lost. I doubted my worth. My friend patiently took the time to show me important truths from the Bible especially from the book of Romans, chapters 5 and 6.

Slowly God’s love started to feel warm around my cold soul. I began to believe that “Christ died for my sins”, just as the Bible says. I became absolutely certain that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and my Savior and Lord. I felt an urgency to claim him and obtain forgiveness of all my sins.

Like those on the day of Pentecost who became convinced that Jesus was the promised Savior, I cried out...”what must I do to be saved?’ Then my friend Ed told me to turn my heart toward God and be baptized into Christ, and God would make me totally clean from the past, give me a new life and provide His spirit as a gift to live in me.

We went to a place with water, and I was immersed into Christ, trusting only in the cleaning power of the blood of Jesus Christ for my salvation. The joy I experienced as I laid my burdened past down and rose up from the water was thrilling and yet at the same time the calmest moment I had ever experienced in my life. I was in awe that God loved me so much. I felt I had great value to God because of what He had done in my soul.

I made a promise that night to seek to love and serve Him. That promise has given direction to my life every day since then. I’ve fallen down and failed a lot, but I’ve never failed to get back up again and try to live like “God’s child”.

I wrote a small booklet called, “Making the Most of Being Children of God” that emphasizes my certainty about who I am... because of Christ. I am a Christian — nothing more, nothing less, and it’s all because of God’s incredible kindness and grace in my life. I plan to die as a Christian, one who seeks to love God and love my fellow man to the best of my ability. I will not quit.

I’ll never apologize for my faith, but always seek to live it in such a way that others will think well of my God. I’ll seek to courageously speak “the truth in love” whenever God provides the opportunity for me to help another person understand His love.

I will always seek to lovingly persuade rather than order people around. Each person, believer and unbeliever has dignity before God and is free to choose Him and His ways, or not to do so. I believe each one of us also has a soul and a God shaped vacuum that only He can fill if we are to be happy and to defeat death. Jesus is Lord and one day everyone will say it is true. Until that day, each can decide God’s place in his or her life.

My life has been richly blessed. The finest person I’ve ever known is my loving wife, Camilla. God has given us four unique, gifted and loving children who have taught us much about God.

There have been several extremely difficult periods in my life, but I only want to mention my two serious bouts with cancer, one in 1973-74 and the second in 1981-82. Only by the grace of God am I alive today. I really mean it, for I almost died. I understand very personally that each day is a gift of God.

I must praise Him at every opportunity.

Because of so much poor health, I have devoted several of my books to the problem of human suffering and the love of God. I’ve always been interested in encouraging those who go through life’s trials, difficulties, and horrible sufferings. My book, “Does God Care When We Suffer?” tells some about this and the book, “What Can I Say To a Friend With Cancer?” details the emotional and spiritual needs of those who face this difficult illness. But in all the dark nights, I have never been alone and never abandoned by God (although I’ve felt that way sometimes). Maybe these things have been my version of the “thorn in the flesh”. Yet even so I have been given incredible love and strength by my heavenly Father, and I must praise Him at every opportunity.

A professor wrote a line that I have made my own: The miracle is in your hope, not in your healing. Let me explain. Without doubt, God has physically healed me from cancer. Not once but twice. I believe in the powerful God who answers prayer! He did it. He brought me from death to life. And that is wonderful.

But there is something far more wonderful. I say this because one day you and I will die. Because God allowed Jesus to go to the Cross for all of us, and because He raised Him from the dead, you and I have a hope that is the great miracle. I look forward to life beyond the grave with God and all those in his family, the church of Jesus Christ.

If you are in Christ, you participate in the great promises of God. This really excites me and give me reason to compassionately serve as many as possible while telling what God has in mind for those who love Him. Yes, there is a certain joy that God has given my life back to me not once but twice. But the real miracle is in the hope, not the healing. That’s because the soul has received healing because of Jesus.

You can understand why I’m a happy man, can’t you? Even with constant troubles and trials I know He holds my future in His hand. That failure is bright because of what He has done and what He has promised. That’s why I love Him.

My prayer for you is that your testimony, different from mine, ends at the same place — Jesus Christ. Be sure you are in Him. What an amazing grace He has given you and me.

(If you would like to share your experience, please write: P. O. Box 2001, Abilene, TX USA 79604 or herald@abilene.com attn: Randy Becton)