"You ask me how long I have known the Lord Jesus as my own personal Savior. Well, I have known Christ as my Savior since July.
"I was working at the time in a shop, and I found the place too quiet for me. I wanted to see some life." As he was unable to get the excitement he desired he became restless and says, "I was very miserable." Nothing seemed to satisfy his longings.
One of the men was a Christian, not simply in name but in reality. He found his enjoyment in meeting with some of his fellow Christians, and was often found with a young blacksmith as his companion "where prayer was wont to be made.”
One morning these two friends came together into the shop. They seemed full of joy, and spoke about the happy time they had had at a Christian gathering the night before. This made the young man wish he was like them and that he had been with them the previous evening.
"I waited," he says, "until the blacksmith was gone, and then I asked my shop-mate where he had been and what he had been doing. He told me. So I asked him if I could go along with him the next time. He said, 'Yes,' and I went along with him, and I had a good time for a month or so.”
But though he was more satisfied, it was with himself, and not with Christ. He had become more religious, and thought that he was improved, and so could be more restful. This, however, was not to last. His conscience was not purged. He knew something was lacking.
One day in one of the meetings he was asked to tell what he knew of the Savior, and of His grace in saving and keeping those who put their trust in Him. This, however, he felt he could not do, and so he definitely refused.
"How could I talk about my Christian experience if I was not a Christian?”
This led to fresh anxiety, and he became miserable and had a most wretched time of soul agony.
"I was afraid to sleep at night for fear I should die and not be saved. I knew that should I die I was lost and should go to hell." The two friends noticed his anguish, and, as he now tells us, "One night they asked me to go for a walk down by the seashore with them. I went. We got right down on to the pebbles of the beach, and they said, let us have prayer together.' I looked around to see if anyone was observing us. I thought that it was out of place to pray in the open air, so I did not pray.”
The next night they walked on to the shore again, and again knelt to pray, and now he did not stop to look around, but got down on his knees and confessed aloud that he was a lost sinner and cried to God for salvation. Then as he saw that Christ had died for sinners, and had finished His redemption work at Calvary, he there and then trusted in Him. The outward look gave the inward peace.
"We got up from our knees and started to walk back, but no one spoke until I blurted out, 'I'm saved.' They said, `When?' I answered, `Down during that prayer on the beach.' I went home and confessed it to my people.”
They were Christians, but as yet they had seen nothing in their son to make them think that he was really converted. So the father said, "I don't believe it.”
It seemed too sudden a change. The young believer did not know what to do, and going to his room cried bitterly. However, he had learned to make God his refuge now, and he cried to Him for guidance for all his pathway, and that he might show others what the grace of God could do. As he rose to his feet the thought came to him, "Live the Life”
By God's grace he was enabled so to conduct himself in his home that his loved ones soon saw that they had no cause to doubt his statement. The fruit on the tree showed that the tree was good. The Lord gave him power as well as pardon.
"Although I have failed many times," he adds, "the Lord is still faithful and His love is still the same. And it is through Him and by Him I am what I am.”