Seems like he had forgotten my thoughts over the years. When I believed that God had touched my life on May 13, 1975, I vowed, I would never turn back. That was a solemn oath to me then and it remains today. Those earlier years had stolen my identity - in my opinion, although, my failures were my fault. I needed a new life and He made it possible.
As some know, I spent almost two and a half years literally "on the road" where my only motivation was to seek God wherever He might be found and whenever possible, to talk about His wondrous works. As I was to discover, moving about in mostly Southern states, almost everyone I had a chance to seriously talk about God, seemed to believe, all that was necessary was to go to an altar, make an attempt to confess all of their sins, and they were "saved" - I used to ask, saved? - from what?, for what reason? I met a few who had an explanation, but by and large, no one seemed to have a clue.
I would remind them of my motivation - that God had assured me that He would provide the "power" for me to become His witness, whenever, wherever I might be. (see Acts 1:8) My conclusion was that I had been saved to remind others of His desires. They are mentioned everywhere in Bible and we are to be blessed by merely being His witness. It is not meant to be more of anything except His love and His attention to our lives. So it has been that I can say, I have been blessed over and over again during the past forty years.
My conclusion is that we are not "saved" to keep us from going to Hell. He becomes a part of our lives - by way of our confession, merely to do good, by being good. All we have to do is look around at our friends and neighbors, the people we meet as we move about. The needs are so great.
Especially in these times. I scan a number of "Christian" magazines and messages and more and more, I read of the "prophesies" of "gloom and doom" in the coming years, creating fears that the churches that proclaim the glories of the Lord and the attempts of our Lord Jesus Christ to define His message when He walked among the people in His day, are wrong. Somehow, something else, has the power to overcome the Word of God and the world that He created. What a shame! Where are the people of God with the courage to stand up and remind these "nay-sayers" that God is still God and if we truly want to continue to claim the name of His Son as our Savior, we need to remind them of the absurdity of such claims.
Sadly, these voices of doom and gloom are using their words, but offering no proof, that some people are seeking to overcome this nation that has been since its founding, dedicated to the purposes for which we have stood for almost 240 years. To their shame, they name names and use our ignorance of the strength of our government to lure us into believing our neighbors are part of the reasons we have to fear the future. Listening = means we are closing our ears and minds to the promises of God that continue to be coming forth from the truly dedicated churches through out land.
I did not leave "other" churches to become a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints to shelter myself from the fears that are everywhere to be heard, but to join the "body of Christ" that does not busy themselves with fears about our futures. The Bible which we believe and the Book of Mormom are very clear, not only about the future, but also about our past which appears to have been sorely neglected over the years.
I did change my "spiritual" address because I saw in those young Missionaries who appeared at my door months ago, a hope for our future here on earth and a promise of the "worlds" that are beyond. These young people are not limited to efforts merely in our nation, but others as well, throughout the world. Working together with the blessing of their parents and the "body of Christ" at large, they are doing what the church was called to do, from the very beginning. They are not the only ones, of course, as many churches are dedicated to the same purposes, but sadly, they are limited by the lack of vision that has been part of the Mormon mission from the very beginning.
I know my years are limited and that my resources are limited, but I will leave this world confidant that when there was a real opportunity, I had the courage to stand up and proudly represent an answer to the fears of those who need to know about our Lord and His love for all of us.
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