Are You a Christian?

I was a young college student, studying music and looking to supplement my income, when I was made aware of a job opening at a local church. I gained an interview, and my meeting with the committee went well.

The choir members were excited about the possibility of hiring a college student. But among their questions for me, one was glaringly absent: Are you a Christian?

I wasn’t. To me, this was just a conducting job. I didn’t notice it then, but now I can see the absence of this question as a direct intervention by God.

The committee said that they would telephone me with an answer, and I drove back to my dormitory. That night, I was restless and suddenly aware of a great void inside me–something desperate to be filled. I barely slept.

The next afternoon I was on a lunch date with a friend, when suddenly I burst into tears and demanded, “Don’t you find that there’s nothing anywhere to believe in?”

My friend was calm. He said, “I believe that Jesus Christ died for me and is my Lord and Savior.”

I don’t remember the rest of that date. In my family Christians had been mocked, but here was someone I respected, professing that he needed Christ like he needed oxygen to breathe.

The very next day, the church where I’d interviewed hired me as its choir director. The question regarding my salvation was never asked.

However, by the next Easter, if anyone had asked me, I could have answered that I was a new Christian, led to Christ by a series of intervening graces in my life.

Now I have a deep walk with Christ. I am blessed with a marriage to that wonderful man of faith–and we have three children. Having not known Jesus as a child, I am called to work with children and youth to help them become aware of God’s grace in their lives. Praise God for His intervention and the unexpected turns in our lives!