This past weekend my wife and I visited a couple who have been members of our church for almost 50 years. They told us a bit about their upbringing, how they met, how they came to Christ, and the difference the Lord has made in their lives.
I love to hear such stories. Before we knew it, two hours had passed. As we grabbed our coats and said goodbye, we told our friends Don and Joan how wonderful it was to have an unhurried conversation and hear their testimony.
At that point Don mentioned that he had been talking to another elder who had expressed his desire to hear their testimony at some point. Don told him in the meantime to read Ecclesiastes 2 and 4, Psalm 25, and John 15:5. Don said, “My testimony is all in there.”
Right away I knew what my friend meant. Even though each Christian’s salvation testimony is unique in that the Lord providentially orchestrates various circumstances to bring that person to faith in Christ, there is still a sense in which each person’s story is found in the big Story of redemption, as recorded in Scripture.
Our story is in the Story.
I woke up on Sunday with our visit and conversation fresh on my mind. So I opened my Bible to the Scriptures my friend had mentioned in closing. Here are excerpts from these passages, in the order that he listed them:
I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11)
Again I looked and saw all the oppression that was taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed — and they have no comforter! And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. (Ecclesiastes 4:1, 4)
To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, in you I trust….
Make me to know your ways,
O Lord; teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good.
For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great….
Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted.
Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sin.
(Psalm 25:1, 4-5, 7, 11, 16, 18)I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
(John 15:5)
As it turns out, the man that led this couple to Christ was my uncle, who came to this couple’s home every single evening for a whole week in the middle of February in the mid-1970’s to read and explain the Gospel of John to them. This couple has belonged to Christ and the Webster Bible Church family ever since. My uncle Harry was their pastor then, and I am their pastor now — more than four decades later.
The lady that gave my uncle their phone number, so that he could contact them in the first place, recently went home to be with the Lord. Her homegoing was felt deeply by this couple, given the role she played in their eventual coming to Christ and their longstanding friendship in the same church all these years.
A typical movie is two hours long. Some movies have good storylines. But none of them beats a beautiful gospel testimony. To hear how the Lord orchestrates the circumstances of a person’s life in order to save him is a wonder that continually amazes me.
What’s your story?