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Mark McKinney

My Pride kept me from God

I grew up in an Atheistic home. The two hundred year old family Bible was never opened. There were no family devotions. The name of Jesus was never spoken. The answer to all my questions was "science." We are here by evolution, the universe by the Big Bang, we live by chance, and we die to become "just so much compost." But this was all okay for me. I knew nothing different. I was taught in school that this was correct and that religion was something for fanatics that needed help in their lives or for those that wanted to start wars. After all, the earth would be a great place if we could all only get along. Such went the days of my childhood filled with pride that I could be as good, if not better, than any religious person around.

I never thought about religion
I can honestly say that I never thought about religion or Jesus until I met my wife, Helen. To me she was the ultimate religious person, attending church maybe once a month. I never understood her desire. I tried to attend church once or twice with her, but I always came away disappointed. Our only real argument in nine years now was over religion when we asked a priest if he would marry us. He said to me "Sure, I will marry you. You are baptized, aren't you?" I said that I wasn't and he countered with "Then we can't marry you until you are baptized." I asked him whether or not he would marry Helen to an axe murderer that was sprinkled unknowingly as a child than to me and he said "Yes!" At that point I never wanted to come near a church again as long as I lived. We were married seven years ago by a justice of the peace.

I would begin attending church
About six years ago Helen and I attended a Marriage Encounter. I have always been open to anything that could improve our already excellent relationship. During the weekend together I learned how much church meant to her and how inadvertently I was hurting her by not being there with her. I decided that weekend that if church was important for Helen then I would begin attending church with her as we were a family and should be together. But, the only reason I went was that church was important to my wife, Helen. I could care less about church at that time.

Searching for the Truth
I had never really attended church before and I never ever assumed I would become a Christian. It was only a short time ago that God showed me why I never found Him before. I was searching for knowledge, and not truth. While at the church I searched for knowledge, and asked lots of questions. I could not get a single valid answer (except the standard "The Bible says so") for my questions regarding the Bible, evolution vs. creation, Jesus, etc. I needed some "real" answers and I was not getting a single one.

I stopped going to church
I came to a point about a year ago when I was so discouraged about the whole thing that I stopped going to church. I was getting nothing out of it. A few months went by and I became worried for our son. Sooner or later he would ask me why I was not going to church and I knew when I told him the truth he would stop attending as well. I wanted him to grow up in the church if for no other reason than to have the knowledge and experience I never had. Helen decided she better find a new church that we would be happier at. She found a fairly evangelical contemporary church and started dragging me there. I enjoyed the services and the messages there much more than ever before. But it was not until the Pastor actually gave a sermon about salvation and what it really means that God opened my heart and started my search for truth.

I truly heard the gospel for the first time
Looking back on it now, I can feel when and where the change from searching for knowledge to searching for truth came to be. When I was looking for knowledge I was only attempting to broaden my horizons. I felt that a well rounded individual should know about religious matters but in the end, religion was still just a psychological crutch. In five years I never heard about salvation. When I truly heard the gospel for the first time I switched from the search for knowledge to the search for truth. The Bible says "Seek and ye shall find", but unless you are truly seeking the truth, the truth will not find you. I sought the truth for three months and read about 2000 pages per week during that time. I had found a good resource for information at a new Christian book store. I covered all the topics: creation vs. evolution, is there a God, is the Bible valid, is Jesus really who he said he was? Eventually, I found I had no more questions. I now believed in creation, the Bible, and Jesus. I could have intellectualized my way to becoming a Christian at this point, but I didn't. God didn't want my assessment of the evidence or my flat reply "Okay God, I believe you are what you say you are," he wanted my heart and I wasn't prepared to give it to Him because I had a new dilemma now. If I accepted Jesus just for the gift of eternal life I would become just like those hypocrites I saw all too often.

I give up my fight
Luckily, God told our Pastor just what to talk about during his next sermon. He spoke about the gift of salvation and how important it is but how secondary it really is to who you want to lead you life after and that it doesn't really matter how good a life you lead you will still far short. One sin a day is still 365 per year. This sermon hit my pride a knockout punch and later in the early hours of December 10th, 1994, God sent His Holy Spirit down upon me and I became a Christian. It was the most powerful experience I have ever had. I cried for hours as I realized that my life had meant nothing up until this time and the hurt I caused every time I talked down about church and God. But the most wonderful thing that happened that night was that at the moment I asked Helen to pray with me, she was so moved by the Spirit that she too became a Christian. She had been a churchgoer all her life, but had never really given her heart to the Lord. This instance brings new life to Romans 8:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

The first week I felt very depressed
It has been almost one year now since I became a Christian. I have grown in Christ much since that time. The first week I felt very depressed and felt it difficult to accept what I had done. I account this to the acknowledgement that my pride in myself is what kept me from God, that I could have lived my life so differently, and that I was struggling like most new Christians with the changes about to take place in my life. The first week was the toughest, but I have been getting stronger every day. I have made a commitment to follow Jesus and I will give Him nothing less than 100%. I still slip up, but I now realize more often when I do wrong and I ask God to forgive me and to help lead me. I get depressed sometimes when I feel like I have thirty-two years to catch up on and I continually need to remind myself that God needed me with the life experiences that I have. He might only use me to bring one person to Christ, but that one person might bring millions. I am currently working on a ten week course for new or non-Christians. It involves describing as much proof as I can possibly give for God, the validity of the Bible, creation, and Jesus. I want to provide the type of information that I was never able to find to those who need it. I have also attended the Seattle Promise Keepers conference this year. Wow! What an awesome two days!

Thank you!
If you read this far, I appreciate your effort and thank you for listening to my testimony. If you do not know who Jesus Christ is or are turned off of religion, I challenge you to look into the life of Jesus and try to disclaim who He is. Remember that religion is man's attempt to get to God, Christianity is God coming to man. Jesus changed my life, He can change yours as well.

In Christ,

Mark McKinney

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