My testimony is no doubt much like many others, but very unlike most that are shared publicly. I cannot point to a moment in time at which I was saved. All I can say is, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Due largely to the confused theology that I was raised on, I cannot say when that was.

I was raised in a very conservative, evangelical Lutheran denomination. Justification was by faith alone, and no question about that. Man was utterly incapable of obtaining salvation through his own efforts. Salvation came by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. In that, my church was quite orthodox.

Evangelism was a high priority in our denomination. Every year, as well as I can remember, a guest evangelist was invited for a week of evening evangelistic services. This is where the confusion comes in. While the Gospel was faithfully preached (again, this is to the best of my recollection), the call to “receive Christ” was very Arminian. There was always a heavy emphasis on emotional appeals. If the Holy Spirit didn’t move anyone to repentance and faith, the preacher surely would. Consequently, I prayed a “sinner’s prayer” and “asked Jesus to come into my heart” more times than I can remember.

On one of those occasions, I remember asking the evangelist why, when I had gone through all the necessary steps on previous occasions, it hadn’t “stuck”? I had prayed the prayer, and I had really, really meant it, but I hadn’t stayed saved. I was told that I needed to preserve my faith through diligent Bible reading and prayer. I confessed that, although I had begun well, I had gradually slacked off in my devotions and drifted away. He encouraged me to do better this time, and promised that he would remember to pray for me, that my faith would not fail. I remember the man, and met him on several occasions in subsequent years, and I have no doubt that he made that promise in good faith and kept it. Yet, I did fall away as before—which, I now realize, meant I was probably not saved at all.

Now you may ask, was I really not saved, or was I backslidden? How can I say? There is no doubt that I was under conviction of sin. I understood quite clearly that Jesus died in my place for my sin, and that if I confessed my sin and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, my sin would be forgiven and I would be saved. Perhaps I was truly saved, but I don’t believe I was.

As I grew older, I drifted steadily farther away from the faith I was taught. If I was merely backslidden, it was a long slide. Through my high school years, no one who knew me on a daily basis would have imagined I was a Christian. I certainly did not believe I was, but I had determined to come back—someday, when the cost was not so high, when there was less fun to be had, when it became necessary to get serious about life and eternity. I would buy my ticket before the box office closed. I even told my drinking buddies that I still believed the preaching I was raised with, and that someday I would get seriously religious. They thought that was funny. Perhaps they would have taken me more seriously if I hadn’t been their best source of ribald humor.

Through those years, I continued to put on my saved face for church. I’m sure few people in our small town were fooled, but I didn’t always stay in town. I made a point of attending every Bible Camp I could and going to several retreats put on by our denominational Bible School. I learned to sing and quote Scripture and became reasonably handy at “sharing” around the campfire. I made several friends at those retreats, including one who, it turns out, was playing almost the same game as I. However, God was providentially working on both of us through that time. Twenty-six years after we met at Flathead Lake, Montana, he is still my best friend.

I left home at the earliest possible opportunity and headed for the Twin Cities, not exactly to seek my fortune, but to leave the old town behind, and maybe even the old life. I was undecided, but I thought I might give God a try again. I chose the Twin Cities for two reasons: first, because several of my Bible Camp acquaintances were attending the denominational Bible School in the suburb of Plymouth, west of Minneapolis, and second, because my older sister lived with her husband in New Brighton, north of St. Paul. They had offered me a room if I wanted to come.

I arrived in the Cities in the Fall of 1983. On my way to my sister’s apartment complex, I stopped for gas at a Standard station in Arden Hills. Seeing a “HELP WANTED” sign in the window, I asked for the manager and applied for a job. I was hired on the spot. I had barely enough money to pay for my tank of gas. If you think that was providential, a day or two later, before my first day of work, my thermostat went out and I blew a radiator hose two blocks from the Standard station. I took advantage of my employee discount and free towing before I had even punched in.

As you might expect, “giving God a try” didn’t go so well. It wasn’t long before I was back to my old ways. It was not uncommon for me to be involved in some variety of ungodly behavior with my suburban St. Paul friends on Friday night, and be in church on the Bible School campus in Plymouth on Sunday morning. God would have to wait. A year went by. Then, two events coincided to disrupt my happy, irresponsible existence. I lost my job (one of the few things that I still maintain was not my fault), and my sister got pregnant—we need your room, could you please move out?

I will now skip my adventures as a wandering nomad for several months.

I finally landed in an apartment with some friends who had attended the Bible School, and was working two jobs. I was now thinking seriously about spiritual matters. I was attending church semi-regularly, and I was listening with real interest to the Christians around me, all of whom believed I was one of them. It was not really that they had anything to say that I didn’t already know. I had spent my life immersed in evangelical Christianity and orthodox theology. I understood the Gospel better than some of them. The question that troubled me was, why didn’t it work for me? Why was it real for them, and just knowledge for me?

One Sunday evening I attended church with my best friend from camp days. I don’t know how it happened, but I found myself in the very uncomfortable position in the pew between him and a girl he was sweet on. The service had started, the church was packed, and we were in the second or third pew from the front, so I couldn’t just get up and move. Anyway, because of my discomfort, and because I didn’t think it was a very good sermon, I wasn’t really listening to the preacher. As I sat there, my mind wandering, I began to feel really out of place. The people around me, they belonged there. I did not. Why not? I believed everything I had to believe, and more. I wanted to be a Christian. But what they believed changed them, while I was still the same old sinner. I determined at that moment to be a Christian. I knew it didn’t work that way, but I didn’t know what else to do. I had “gone forward” and prayed a “sinner’s prayer” so many times that it was meaningless. I had, in effect, been vaccinated against salvation.

In the following weeks and months, I read my Bible more or less regularly, and prayed. I doubted that God heard me.

After some time, I began to realize that when I confessed my sins, I really was sorry. It wasn’t just a rote prayer. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. When I gave thanks, I was truly thankful. I loved hearing God speak through Scripture. Wait! God speaks? God speaks! To me!

And just like that, I knew that God had created a clean heart in me. He had granted me repentance. I was a new creature. Like Lazarus, he had called me forth from the grave. All the Scriptures that I had learned in Sunday School applied to me. I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ—I was saved!

When did God breath life into me? I don’t know. Sometime in the Spring or Summer of 1985, I think. All I know is, whereas I was blind, now I see.