On April 1, 1984 I was a fool. On April 2, I was not. What happened? Psalm 14 begins, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Had you asked me on April 1 if God existed, I probably would have said that he did not. I say, “probably,” because no one had ever asked me that question. I certainly was living as if God did not exist. But on April 2, that all changed.
In the early evening of April 2, I met with a young pastor in a small church in Jupiter, Florida, for marriage counseling; I was one year into a marriage that was falling apart. My (former) wife wanted a divorce, and I suggested that we get counseling from this church she had attended occasionally. She complied, made the call, and this young pastor agreed to meet with us separately. My meeting was first. April 2, I was sitting in his office, my life a wreck, the sum total of life lived my way.
The pastor asked me if I had a relationship with Jesus Christ. Having been raised Roman Catholic, I mumbled some vague answer of affirmation. He then proceeded to tell me what the Bible had to say about my sin and about God’s offer of forgiveness through faith in Jesus Christ. What was THAT about, I wondered in my head. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’m here for marriage counseling.” The pastor assured me that he was aware of that and continued with the Bible verses. This angered me and, in my arrogance, I decided that I was going to make him look foolish by asking him questions so profound that he wouldn’t be able to answer them. To each question I asked, he replied, “Good question; let’s see what the Bible has to say about that.” I kept pitching my questions and he kept hitting them back with answers from the Bible. At the end of our session, my so-called profound questions exhausted, he asked me if I wanted to pray to receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. People, the gospel that I had fought that entire evening, in that moment, seemed like the most reasoned, rational, compelling good news that I had ever heard. I said, “Yes!” That evening, April 2, 1984, I put my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and became a child of God. I walked out of that office no longer a fool.
