Mountaintop

For more than half my life, you couldn’t get me near a church. Me… go to church? No way! I saw churches as failed, antiquated, outdated, and irrelevant institutions. All kinds of people invited me to church. I wouldn’t go. People prayed for me (and, oh, how they prayed); I scoffed at their prayers.

Though I was well educated and well read, I was lacking the one thing that might have drawn me into any Christian fellowship: faith. Without faith, even I couldn’t force myself into church… even had I wanted to.

Then, a strange thing happened. In 1988, I was talked into attending a business conference clear across the country in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the conference, I was outraged by speakers who acknowledged Jesus Christ as a partner in their lives, their families, AND their business. Surely, religion had no place in business, and certainly not proclaimed from the stage at a business conference, I argued. My friend and business partner, Steve Sullivan, calmed me down a bit by asking me if… once I had achieved a high level of success and recognition… wouldn’t I want to be free to talk about the things that mattered most to me?

Almost immediately after that exchange, a speaker was introduced that I had been eagerly anticipating. His name was Ron Ball, and I knew him to a top financial analyst, who was also a vibrant, exciting, and dynamic speaker. I had my notebook and pen at the ready to try and outline as many of the points I was sure he’d be covering during his presentation. Imagine my surprise when he began by introducing himself as a financial analyst, but then unapologetically acknowledging that he was also a Christian minister. He wanted to get that on the table right up front, he said, because many of the references he was going to be using came from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible. I was stunned. But 4 pages of notes, and 40 minutes later, I stood with the other 20 thousand people packed into the Charlotte arena to give Ron a thunderous standing ovation.

Though the business conference ended late Saturday night, everyone was being encouraged to come back to the arena on Sunday morning for a non-denominational worship service.

“Thanks. Not for me. I’ll be sleeping in and then catching some sites in Charlotte before my flight back to California,” I said. Famous last words.

Two more of my east coast business partners were Jim and Nancy Herrick, whom I had just met for the first time on Friday night. On Sunday morning, they hustled me out of my room, got me checked-out of the hotel, and drove me to the arena. “There’s someone we want you to meet,” was what they kept telling me. I thought they were talking about some of our millionaire partners, and so I grudgingly allowed myself to be dragged along.

We got there a bit late because you-know-who was dragging his feet, and my worst fears were realized: I was in some sort of revival meeting! From stage, people were testifying as to how the Lord had worked in their lives, they were praying, and (of course) they were taking up an offering! Jim and Nancy were excited… I was bored, a little put out that I was being forced to endure all this, and just waiting for it to be done so I could mingle and network with the leaders of our business.

And then… something incredible happened: Ron Ball, the financial analyst I held in such high esteem, took the stage. Suddenly, I was paying a little more attention. Truth be told, I had such an intensity of focus, that everything narrowed down to just Ron Ball on that stage for me. He quoted Revelation 3:20 several times:

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Over and over Ron spoke those words of invitation. He emphasized that Christ keeps calling to us… can we listen at the door to our heart? He made it clear that Christ was knocking at the door to our heart… not battering it down, as God could most surely do. Calling… knocking… but the latch is on our side, and we need to DECIDE to open the door and let Christ into our heart. And if we do, He promises to be part of our lives in a very real way.

Ron spoke of other things, too. He spoke of belief. Now that was easy for me. I believed in God. I could easily see the miracle of a newborn’s hand, the elegant structure of a dandelion, the ordered chaos of a cloud, and the enormous power and beauty of a lightning bolt. Faith, however, was a much more difficult matter for me. When Ron spoke of faith, he gave examples of how when we place our faith in people we often get disappointed or hurt. Even the most perfect parent will someday die, making a lie of the promise: “I’ll never leave you.” Finally, here was someone acknowledging that putting your faith in a church, or a doctrine, or a pastor was a recipe for disappointment.

“Ha, I knew it.”

But then, I listened as Ron explained that the only one who would never leave or forsake me was God. He told how Jesus had already died to redeem me, and that He wanted to come into my life through the power of God’s Holy Spirit. Ron backed everything up with Scripture references; I remember thinking how incredibly well all of Scripture seemed to be falling into place that morning.

I opened the door to my heart that day.

Tears were pouring from my eyes. Letting Christ into your heart for the first time can be an overwhelming experience. For the first time in my 38 years, I really knew what it was to be a child of God. I was overcome with the knowledge of the suffering Christ had endured to rescue me from my sins, and I had no words to express the complete fulfillment, peace, joy, and faith that now filled me… only tears of joy.

Christians call what happened to me a “mountaintop experience.” I agree. It seemed like, in accepting Christ as my savior, I had been suddenly picked up and could briefly see everything from God’s perspective!

That’s my story. Of course, there are a hundred little details that can’t fit in the retelling, but I hope you get the main message: Christ is calling you. Open the door, and He WILL come in.

When did you first hear Christ knocking on your heart? How did it feel when you knew you had really opened the door to let Him in?

By the way, here is a link to a site where you can view a 360 degree panorama of the tiny picture at the beginning of this entry. If you haven’t guessed, it is taken from atop Mt. Everest.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050306.html

Your brother in Christ,

Dave