Sunny Morning

It was a sunny August morning. For me, it was THE sunny morning. I couldn't remember when everything had seemed so bright. The whole world around me felt clean. I felt clean.

The day before, I hadn't felt that way. I was wrestling with a decision, a decision that would change my life forever.

I was a teenage boy at a church camp. I had heard a man from a church, a judge, describe things he had seen in his line of work, particularly cases of troubled young people. I came from a good home, but those stories made me take a hard look at myself. And I knew that I wanted a change.

I wanted to be clean. I knew that there were things in my life that weren't right. I knew that I had done things I shouldn't have. Above all, I knew that I was living a life focused on me. That way of living had left me stained and dirty.

If someone were to look at me from the outside, they would have seen a good kid. But I knew there was more to the story. I wanted to be right with God, and I knew that I wasn't good enough to be right with God. I needed His help to be clean again, to get rid of the stains my past had left.

So on a dark August night, I stepped forward and said that I wanted to be born again. I wanted to be baptized into Christ. I was lead into the Central Texas waters of Lake LBJ, cold water that made me shiver. I remember being lowered into the water, seeing it close above my head. Then I came out of the water, a changed person, a new creation as the Bible says. I had been born again into the family of God.

That dark August night led to the bright August morning. Where I had felt stained, I now felt clean. Where I had felt weighed down, I now felt nothing but freedom.

The night was gone. The sun was shining. And I was right with God.

If you haven't experienced the wonder of new birth, merely reading about it isn't enough. You need to live it for yourself. Visit our www.hopeforlife.org website, read the four steps you find there, and learn how to get right with God.