A little more than 20 years ago, after spending all of my adult life trying to live the best way I could without letting God into my life, things were a real mess for me. I was hurting the people I loved the most. One night it all came crashing down, and I cried out to God, telling Him that I wanted to turn my life around, but I didn’t know how. Expecting my pathetic cry to simply echo in the void, I instead received an unmistakable reply: “I am here, and have always been here. I love you, and want you to be healed. If you follow me, I will lead you to a better place.”
My inner intellectual agnostic was simply overwhelmed by this mystical experience, and I could find no answers to explain this experience. Moreover, this voice kept its promise far beyond my wildest dreams, and has continued to do so for the past 20 years. As I look back at it now, I can’t describe my experience any better than is already expressed in Psalm 40.
“He bent down to me and listened to my cry.
He raised me out of the miry pit, out of the mud and clay;
He set my feet on rock and gave me a firm footing.
On my lips he put a new song, a song of praise to our God.”
Moreover, as I try to understand the “He” who bent down to me that night, I have yet to come with a better answer than the Word Made Flesh, the Present Teacher, this man Jesus whose life story is told in the gospels. I followed His word because, like one of the sheep in the story of the Good Shepherd, I recognized His voice that night. Why I recognized, and still recognize, this voice is sometimes a mystery to me, but this much I know is true – because I’ve experienced it!
— Greg Morgan