"And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved."
-Acts 4:12

by Paul Lytle

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
-Matthew 3:11

I remember very distinctly reading The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson when I was young. Such an incredible story it is of a preacher from the Midwest who goes into the inner city to evangelize gang members. Such an impression this story made upon me. The power of God fills each page. Surely this is the stuff of great conversions, filled with guns and crime, or perhaps a blinding light as with Paul in Acts. When we read Christian biography, we almost feel cheated when something like this does not happen. We are waiting for God to move a mountain for the hero. Sometimes He does.

As much as I had read about such things, I never expected it for me. I was a normal kid, perhaps a bit nerdy, but surely in no danger of guns or crime (I mean, no more danger than anyone else living twenty miles away from the big city). But God moved a mountain anyway. He broke me, and then gave me the greatest gift a man may be given. He began my ultimate conversion with fire, and ended it with love.

*          *          *

One element to the great conversion story is deep and unending sin. We see that in the gangs of Wilkerson's novel. There is theft and murder and sex and even some Rock 'n' Roll. We even see it in Paul, in whom the passion for God was so great that he caused the death of God's people, thinking them heretics. St. Augustine's Confessions remains a Christian classic after some sixteen hundred years. For a story of great redemption to take place, there must be something to redeem.

My story is not exactly like that. I will not pretend that I was without sin, for such a claim would be foolish and unchristian. I will say, however, that I never killed anyone. I never even stole anything. Never. I actually tried to be very moral, and not in some sort of pride thing, but truly because I believed it the right thing to do. I grew up in a Christian household, and I caught on very early to think of others as much (perhaps not more, but at least as much) as myself.

The world would say I was a very good person. Perhaps extremely good. Some would say foolishly good. No matter the terminology, from this point of view, God did not pull me out of the gutter. But I had my own struggles.

Depression was the main one. I was terribly lonely constantly. Now, most people who have never been truly depressed do not understand it. It is a sadness without source and without end. It is not something that can be easily changed by solving some sort of problem. Ultimately, there really isn't a defined problem. Something may set it off, but the depression becomes disconnected from its source, so that a solution to the problem does not solve the depression. I was lonely when I was with friends, even surrounded by them. Even if they were directing all their attention at me, I was lonely.

I was in therapy for this depression, and was eventually put on medication. These pills, in my experience, do a good job in stabilizing your emotions. The only problem is that they stabilizing your emotions in this general melancholy mood. You don't break down and cry, but you aren't happy either. And you're still lonely.

The friends I had were mostly the same way. We lived rather narcissistic lives, to an extent. I don't mean to contradict my earlier statement that I was very conscious of the feelings and needs of others, because I remained that way throughout these years. But at the same time, my primary goals were happiness and love, and I could not find them.

In time, I stopped believing in love completely, simply because I could not find it. This is ironic because my parents loved me very much, as did the rest of my family, but somehow that didn't really count. Again, the problem and the feelings really didn't connect. People loved me, but my depression said it was not true. I did not believe that anyone was really concerned with my happiness. And I did not love anyone to that extent either.

I was in a very bad relationship for a short time with someone who had real mental problems. I didn't know it at the time, but things got wildly difficult because of it. We worked together, and when we broke up she tried to get me fired. Instead of going through all the hassle of defending myself against outright lies, I quit. It was only a part-time job while I was in college, and I found another quickly enough. But in that move I was driven from what friends I still had, which were few.

By this time, even the anti-depressants weren't working. I lived to find someone with whom I could share a life, but could not even find a date. I needed someone to be interested in me.

*          *          *

I was coming home from therapy one day. Freeway traffic was not fast, but it wasn't slow either. The Southwest Freeway had a great deal of construction going on then, and so the shoulders were blocked off from traffic. My lane came to a dead stop at one point, and I didn't know why. I found out later that a truck had stalled in my lane. Several of us stopped behind him, with me right in the middle of the group.

An 18-wheeler didn't stop in time. In fact, he didn't come close to stopping in time. What resulted was a multiple car accident with me right in the middle. My car was crushed beyond recognition, and the car in front of me caught fire. The vehicle was engulfed in flames, and the driver died.

I was unconscious, but the construction workers were nearby, and they broke my window, cut me out of the seatbelt, and pulled me out in time.

I did not know how lucky I was. I had been unconscious and remembered almost nothing, so I really thought it had just been a serious fender-bender. I went to the towing company to get some stuff out of my car, only to find that there was nothing in my car. Everything on the inside had been burnt away — the seats, steering wheel, gear shift, and even the floor. The paint was gone, as was the trunk and half the front. The tires were burnt off. The car had been crushed so badly that had there been a passenger in any seat in that car, he would have died.

The guy at the towing place was amazed when he heard I survived. He told me I had an angel watching over me. Even then I knew he was right.

*          *          *

Strange what physical pain does to a person. I really didn't have much in the way of injuries. I had a concussion and some scratches, but I came out remarkably unharmed. And yet even with that little pain I began to understand what pain was. And it was not what I had felt in my loneliness. C. S. Lewis said that the quickest way to cure someone of their emotional pain is to have them experience physical pain. I thought that theory odd before that moment, but no longer. Loneliness no longer had a hold on me.

I took myself off the anti-depressants and quit therapy. My therapist thought I had gone off the deep end (she didn't say as much, but that was the gist of it). I rededicated myself to school and was able to cut a quarter or two off my term there.

I also began reexploring Christianity. I never had trouble with the theology there. Unlike many people, I understood why it was not good enough to simply be "good." You see, I had been good, but I had felt dirty the whole time. I knew that I was not worthy of heaven. I knew that even the "small" sins lead to death, because all I had committed were the supposedly "small" sins, and that is where I was headed. So I understood right away why I needed someone to take my place in death.

The only trouble was that I still didn't believe in love. Without that understanding, I could not quite understand God. Intellectually, I was ready, but I was not in my heart, which is far more important.

*          *          *

People kept telling me that when I finally stopped searching so desperately for a girlfriend, I would get one. It wasn't immediately, but they were basically right. It was about a year after the car wreck that I began dating the woman who would become my wife. And then, as time passed, I fell in love.

The importance of that didn't register with me right away. It wasn't until I almost lost her that I discovered what I truly felt for her. Our impending breakup devastated me, and I began to curse God, demanding to know why He would give me love only to snatch it away.

Well, that wasn't terribly constructive, and it didn't even make me feel better. When the grief finally overcame me, I prayed truly for the first time in months. I asked God for help, knowing that I could not save the relationship myself.

It was only a few seconds later that a good friend called. I had left him a message earlier, and he had just then been able to call back. We spoke for an hour, and he was able to put things into perspective and give me some ideas of where to go from there.

It was later in the afternoon, when I was driving over to my girlfriend's apartment, that I first connected the prayer to the phone call. It was a miracle that had saved the relationship. And it was finally the miracle that saved my soul, after all that had come before, because my last excuse for not believing was gone.

I surrendered my soul to God in the car on that day. It opened a new world to me that is still growing. It is ironic that what I felt for a woman had opened that door, since what I have learned from the Father about love puts that to shame. I love her a great deal better, and I certainly love God better.

It continues to grow as I learn. At first, I admit, I still wasn't that interested in reading the Bible and praying. But when God is given even a small part of your heart, He is not content until He has it all. He has pushed me in that direction for the last three years, and will continue to do so until I am who He wants me to be.

Before, such an idea would have worried me. I would not have wanted to lose my individuality. The thing is, when I was depressed and empty, there really hadn't been anything there. I was not a complete person. What is distinctly mine is what was given by God. The more I become like Him, the more I am truly me.

Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.

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