When I was about 11 years old I got to head to summer camp for the first time. My parents trekked us out to Wisconsin to a good Baptist camp and we were excited to spend an entire week there. I remember lots of wholesome camp fun from that week: new friends, swimming in the lake, trips to the canteen, trying new things like archery and various crafts, staying up long into the night chattering with cabin mates and singing around the campfire while enjoying various treats. I also remember lots of chapel services, skits, speakers, cabin contests and altar calls.
Yep, alter calls. Every. Single. Night.
Now, I wasn't surprised with the alter call routine. It was a standard in any Sunday service at a Baptist church when I was growing up. What was different was the emphasis that you better know the time, the date and the place that you made your declaration of faith in order for it to be authentic and ensure your place for eternity. You should remember who was there too! I'd heard that all before, but it was passionately proclaimed at summer camp as often as the altar call was offered. By the end of the week, I was feeling a little unsure about my own status. I couldn't remember the time, date or place that I made my declaration of faith. I certainly couldn't remember who was with me when I did or I would've comfortably expected to speak to that person upon my return home and get that information from them. Then, of course, I'd be sure to write it down.
By the end of the week I'd gone forward during an altar call. There was a tremendous emphasis on being certain, but being "certain" seemed to mean you better know time, date, place and person and I didn't have those. I figured I should nail that down.
Fast forward to my first morning home after returning from camp. We'd also been told we should tell people we'd "been saved" right away. So, I told my parents, "Guess what? I got saved at camp!"
After a bit of a pause, one of them and I don't remember which (I just remember they were in agreement) said, "No you didn't."
Well, that was not the response I was expecting!
We had a short discussion then, my parents and I, about who I was and what my life said about me. My fruit, they called it. I remember something like this: "Jesaca, we have watched your life. We don't know when you proclaimed faith in Jesus, but you love him. You point others to him, you live to honor him and you are growing to know him more and more."
I doubt my parents recognized at the time how important that conversation would be for my future. I didn't. But they expressed to me an idea that was probably not popular in their denomination and it stayed with me. The principle that ultimately my faith walk could only be walked out by me in the way I partnered with God to walk it. Another human being or organization couldn't tell me how that should look. This is different than truth. Truth doesn't change, of course, but God makes us each very unique and the path of that journey and the way someone walks it out can look vastly different.
I have revisited this principle on several occasions when my faith journey didn't look anything like the journeys of the people around me. I examined it after high school when everyone seemed to know what they were doing and I had no clue and I didn't understand "God's plan for my life". I looked at it when my first marriage was imploding and everyone had Biblical reasons for all the different things they thought I should do to resolve it. I had to surrender my concerns to God about not "looking like the other Christians I know", in grieving, in parenting, in homemaking, in remarrying and so many other "ings"!
I was asked to share my story with a group I participated in. While thinking on it I had a flash of remembrance. I was the early riser in our family. Always up before everyone else. I would typically flip on the TV and sit there in my pajamas until the house began to stir. I was often up before 7 am. Do you know what's on before 7 am? NOT cartoons. However, The 700 Club WAS! Church wasn't part of my earlier years as my parents weren't yet at that place in their journeys. I didn't know about who Pat Robertson was or what the gospel message said. I just knew that other than boring news or an old program of some sort this was what was available to watch.
Many, many years after that conversation with my parents I remembered my first faith encounter, praying with Pat Robertson as a young girl. Probably somewhere around 8 years old. Not because I felt I needed saving, not because I needed to secure my eternity or fit in with a particular church culture, but because the Jesus walk he talked about seemed right and true to my young spirit and I wanted to be in that space. For decades I did not consciously remember the time, the date, or the place of that moment and the only person I remembered from it was Jesus. Thank goodness! After all, isn't He the One that matters?!
So began my faith journey and He's been with me ever since.
"The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.
I will advise you and watch over you."
Psalm 32:8
