My Salvation Testimony -- The answer to a 12 year olds' prayer
I have to start more than a year before I got saved. I was on a PeeWee football team and we were undefeated, won our championship game, flew to Florida and won our bowl game. That spring Mohammed Ali was fighting Joe Frazier at Madison Square Garden. I lived in the suburbs of NYC and this was a very big event. I was in sixth grade in elementary school and decided to organize our own boxing match. We made a ring in my friends backyard. We put up ropes and mattresses. Three kids from school were judges, one kid was the timer, another was the referee and we had three fights. The final fight was between Mike Irwin and myself. We fought 12 rounds, 3 minutes each. We were not wearing protection. By the third round my nose was bleeding and I knew I was losing. Each round I would go out and was getting beat and all I could think was "I need someone to tell me what to do". I was desperate for some coaching, but my friends who were in my corner didn't know any more about boxing than I did. If you have never fought in a 12 round boxing match it is the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life. Add to that you are getting punched and for nine of those rounds my nose is bleeding and that was the closest I have come to death in my life. I did narrowly miss getting killed in a car accident, but as far as wanting to go check into a hospital after the fight, this was definitely the worst I had ever felt. That was when I was humbled. I realized the reason we had been victorious as a team in football had nothing to do with me and everything to do with our coach. This was reenforced the second season as we went undefeated again, we were much more dominant than we were in the first year and obliterated the other team in the Championship game. The first string offense and defense came out of that game after the first quarter because we were already leading 21-0. During that entire year our first string never got to play in the second half because the games were all over by then. We flew to Texas, won our bowl game and then that was it. I was too old play for that coach after that and all the older teams were average at best.
I was twelve years old and this is when I began seeking the Lord. I decided after that team I wanted to give myself to something and be a champion again. I realized I needed a great coach. So I began thinking about a worthy goal to give my life to. Nothing seemed to be good enough. Then it hit me, the key point is whether or not God is real. If God is real then you have to be concerned about standing before God on judgment day, if He isn't real then you don't need to worry about laws and all that. As soon as I thought about it I immediately realized God was real, the question was "which God?" I thought about it for awhile and decided the God of the Old Testament was clearly and undeniably real. Bringing slaves out of Egypt, turning them into an army and taking over land from existing kingdoms, no one does that without help and the only help they had was from God. However, I was raised as a Christian, we went to church every week, but I thought "some guy 2,000 years ago walking around Israel in sandals with dusty feet, could that guy really be God of the entire universe?" That seemed way too far fetched. So I began going to the synagogue with my best friend and decided that there must be some errors in the New Testament, all I had to do was study it real hard, find the errors and then that would prove Jesus was not God.
So I was still thinking about what I wanted to give my life to, and everything seemed to be not good enough. Then we were at church one Sunday and they read this verse about Jesus coming down in the clouds with great glory and I immediately thought: That's it! I want to be there when Jesus comes down in those clouds. As soon as I thought that I heard a voice inside "pray about it"! I knew the verse that ask and you shall receive, and so I replied inside "I will!" The voice then responded "This time, do it!" (I had said I would study the New Testament but had failed to follow through on that). So as soon as I got home I went up to my room, got down on my knees and prayed "Lord, I want to see you when you come down in those clouds". The Lord responded "You will, and furthermore I say unto you that you are a son of God".
I shared all this because what was implied in my prayer was that I wanted to be on the Lord's team when He led them in victory and triumph. I realized the Lord returning with an army was just like that team I had been on. Since then I had been looking for another team and realized this was the team I wanted to give myself for.
Football is rough, you could even say it is violent. I saw kids get hurt, one kid broke his leg, another tore up his knee. Every season my shins would get beat up bad and I would always sprain one of my thumbs. I played offensive line and on defense I was middle linebacker. So I was in the center of the battle. But the game is also fun. It is a battle and the most fun game I ever played was the bowl game in Dallas. They were the best team we played in two years and when it was over we won 12-0. That is a very close score. The first string played the entire game, and since I was on both offense and defense I played every minute of that game. The better the competition the more fun the game is. This is why I am enjoying and savoring every minute of what is going on. Yes, I am looking forward to being raptured, but I also know we only get to be in this battle once. When it is over, it is over. I don't want any regrets. Take a look, I have posted every single day from the start, I don't want to miss out on a single day.
Let me give you an example. In our championship game the second year the team we were playing had this one play which was their key play, they scored a lot of touchdowns on this play. It was an end around to a back who lined up in the slot. My job was to read the formation and when they went to this formation call out "end around" to the rest of the defense and then blitz and try and cut it off in the backfield. We got the ball first, drove down and scored a touchdown. Then we kicked to them. The first two downs we shut them down for 0 yards. It is now 3rd and 10 and they go to this formation. So I call out "End around". The quarterback doesn't know what to do, he looks to his sidelines, but continues "Down", I call it out again, louder. He says "set" and I call it out again even louder. The play was on the third hut. By that time I was screaming so loud you could hear it in all the seats in the stadium. I tackled the kid in the backfield for a loss of five yards, and that was when they knew they were beat. I feel like that is what I am doing in this blog. I am screaming "end around". I don't know if the ball will be snapped on what call, but I know that this formation means it is an end around. The red heifer has been killed and its ashes gathered, the tabernacle of David has been raised in Shiloh, all the enemies around Israel have tried to wipe them out and they lost, the bow of Elam is broken, we have seen the revelation 12 sign, we have seen the writing on the wall sign, and everything is ready to go with the mark of the beast. The coach on that football team scouted the teams we played and so we were prepared each week for what we were going to see. Jesus is the greatest coach, He has scouted out Satan and we know what we are going to see. I am not looking at what is going on as some terrifying event with an imminent nuclear war. I am looking at this as the greatest fun, an answer to the prayer of a 12 year old, and the best time to be alive. Amen.