Then

On New Year's Eve I had breakfast with my parents. I had driven to their town hoping for some tech advice, but left with much more. They were on their way to Panera, so I figured I may as well eat with them. My mom left shortly after she finished eating to run some errands, but my dad and I stuck around. We began talking about this blog and other facets of ministry. Considering he's been in ministry for over 3 decades, I figured I'd take any advice he had to offer. We discussed everything from the importance of presenting the bible as infallible to the necessity of making decisions and sticking with them. Then we landed on something very interesting...

He took a napkin and drew the picture you see above. The man at the top represents a life. He drew a line down the center and said, "to the left of the line is the old man before salvation, to the right is the new creature he becomes." Then he drew the dotted lines you see, one to the far left and one to the far right. He said, "When people testify, they usually skew the story." He then pointed to the dotted line on the left. "They tell their story with the line all the way to the left. They don't want to tell who they were before, they only want to say what they became afterwards." Then he pointed to the other line. "Others draw the line to the right. They only want to say who they were before, and tell very little of who they became."

He went on to say that testimonies go like this:

Before I met the Lord
Then Jesus saved me
Afterwards I was different

The problem, he asserted, was that people either focus on the "before" or the "after", when in actuality we should glorify the "then" part of the story. He told me "when we focus on the before, the devil gets the glory. When we focus on the after, we get the glory. When we focus on the "then", God get the glory.

I have been criticized in the past for sharing too many details about my former life. While I feel it has been necessary to lay ground work and has served a purpose, my hope for this year is that I grow into a new season of sharing my "then" moment. I've told you plenty about who I was. I've told you plenty about who I've become. But this year, I want to tell you about who Jesus was to me when all hope was lost and His light shattered the darkness.

This year, let us all strive for balance as we share the good news of what Christ has done.