If you can’t recall the day or the hour you came to faith, you’re in good company.
Millions of believers candidly describe both deep faith in Jesus as their Saviour and an inability to recall just when it happened—a “sunrise experience” as one author calls it.
This is the way that grace unfolds, for “Damascus Road” conversions are far fewer than we claim. That road, it should be noted, was 150 miles long, requiring six days of travel. Grace had been working every mile to soften the heart of the angry man who would become its chief apostle.
So grace also walks with the prodigal as he leaves home; in his disturbing revelries; when he finally “comes to himself”; and when he ultimately is encircled by the father’s arms, and once again wears ring and robe. “For this is how God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
Grace is the long arc of the Father’s kind intentions—and it may take months or years before that seeking love brings us to clarity and gratitude.
You have always been loved. You have always been sought. And your faith is an equally long arc of learning just how deeply Jesus values you.
Now stay in grace.
—Bill Knott