I was brought up in a Christian family where the Bible was taught, and from a very early age was surrounded by other Christians. However, this did not mean that I was a Christian myself, although at times I thought I was. But I had not personally accepted Jesus into my life.
Deep down, I could see the urgent need for having a Saviour, but ignored it, and decided to become a Christian a lot later on in life, so that first I could live my life the way I wanted without having a higher authority that I had to explain my actions to.
When I was 9 or 10, I decided that as soon as I was old enough I would stop going to church, since my main motivation for going was to talk to people after the service.
But even though I had decided this, I did know in my heart that God was real, even though I was choosing to blatantly ignore his presence. I had hoped that choosing to do my own thing and control my own life would let me feel free and unaccountable. However, this did not happen. Instead I was, all the time, filled with a strong guilt and anger. And life didn’t seem to have a purpose.
This led me to question the Bible, because I wanted to convince myself that the guilt I felt was not from God but just a natural reaction to the things I had been taught from an early age.
Understanding
I especially questioned the creation story and hoped that when I found out that creation in six days was impossible, I could move on with my life without God. But instead of finding the Bible to be incorrect and unreliable, reading Creation magazine (https://creation.com) led me to the conclusion that the biblical account of creation could actually be proved strongly by science.
God then showed me that my feeling of guilt was because I was a sinner and I faced up to my desperate need of a Saviour. Jesus took away the guilt I was feeling and replaced it with the knowledge that, although I myself would never be good enough to have eternal life, he had already paid the price for my sins — through his death on the cross — so that I could have everlasting life.
I don’t know the exact date that I became a Christian; it was more a gradual realisation over time. But I do know that I was filled with a feeling of peace, that I no longer had to worry about the purpose of life or what it would entail, because it was already all planned out by a perfect God who knows what is best for my life.
Even though I am still a sinner (becoming a Christian does not change us overnight), I have the knowledge that Jesus will never reject one of his children, and that he will help me throughout my life to grow more like him.
Georgia Bayes
