A Simple Heart’s Desire
Do you remember your first time? No, not that first time. I mean the first encounter you had with Jesus? I do. A lot of people have what they call a spiritual birthday, but I really don't remember the date. I know it was summer, I was four years old, and it was unmistakably not only my first encounter with Him, but the first time I asked Him to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart.
It happened a week after a Sunday school class where we colored a picture of Jesus knocking on a door of a giant heart. For about a week after that, I was having dreams of someone knocking on our front door. It was a little scary. During one of those middle of the night dreams of knocking, I woke up and thought for sure that someone really was knocking at our front door. I wondered why my dad was not getting up to answer the door. As I lied in bed, I suddenly remembered the picture I colored and wondered if Jesus was at our front door. I squinted my eyes in the dark at my messy room wondering where that picture was and then realized that I had not heard any knocking for awhile, so I drifted back to sleep. The next morning was Saturday. My dad was up at the crack of dawn and so was I. I jumped out of bed, and searched for the picture. After a few minutes of rummaging through clothes and toys, I found it. I stared at it for a little bit trying to understand it all. Then my attention span was up and so was I doing other things.
Summer Saturday mornings usually began with dragging my sleeping bag out into the living room and unfolding the sofa bed so I could snuggle up and watch tv in bed. My brother would soon join at the sound of Saturday morning cartoons. Before long, Dad would have Willie Nelson or Marty Robbins singing on the stereo drowning out the cartoons while he made pancakes and bacon. By around 8, he'd be done with cooking and already doing yard work before the heat would set in. During all this time, Mom was sleeping in.
On this particular Saturday morning, my brother and I were already out back playing by 9am still in our pajamas. Mom had just started to wake up. Dad was finished by 9:30 and ready to go to the dumps. We loved going to the dumps with him, but the rule was that we had to be dressed. I decided I'd rather stay in my Holly Hobby nightgown and play with our dog, Mush, in the backyard. Mom was slowly moving, getting her coffee, and lounging on the already opened sofa bed. The back door was open and brother and I were pretty loud out there with our husky, but every now and then I could hear singing. I went over to the door to see what Mom what doing.
Peering thought the screen with grimy face and stringy hair, I watched my mother sitting on the bed with her Bible open in front of her singing and praying. Sometimes she spoke in tongues, her heavenly language. Of course, I didn't understand what a heavenly language was, but I'd heard it enough to not be alarmed by it. Watching her intrigued me especially after the dreams I had been having. So, I slowly and quietly opened the screen door and crept into the room until I was standing at the side of the bed staring at my mom. I'm sure she knew I was there, but she didn't say anything and she did not stop singing. I carefully climbed up onto the bed and crawled over to where she was. That's when she stopped and opened her eyes to look at me. As soon as she opened her eyes, I asked her the question, "How do I get to be born again?"
It was a phrase I had heard quite often and I just knew that I was supposed to ask her. I think she was surprised to hear me ask it; after all I was only 4 years old. Never the less, within a moment or two, she realized that I was old enough to understand certain things such as sin and forgiveness. So, she began to explain.
I don't remember exactly how she explained it to me, but I wanted to do whatever she told me to do. I wanted to open the door for Jesus. I wanted to do it right away. So, she told me how to talk to Jesus. She told me what to say and I said it. As soon as I started my prayer, tears started streaming down my cheeks. It wasn't a cry I had ever cried before. I didn't feel any sadness or anger. It didn't even feel like a cry. My voice was normal and I wasn't out of breath. I couldn't understand it. I even said to my mother after our prayer, "I don't know why I'm crying, Mommy, I'm not sad." She said to me, "That's alright. I know why."
Well, as soon as she said that, I must have decided I was done. Either that or my attention span was up again, so I jumped off the bed and went out to play. I didn't have the dreams anymore, but I went back and forth thinking, "There's a little bitty Jesus living inside of my body, or was there? Had something really happened? He heard me right? What if He didn't really hear me and that's why I was crying during that prayer?" All I really wanted was for Him to be with me all the time and be my best friend. So, that wasn't the only time I asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and come into my heart. It was only the first.
I asked Jesus to come into my heart every single night for I don't know how long. I would say, "Just in case you didn't hear me...." It was probably a few years before I realized that I didn't have to ask Him over and over again. He heard me the first time and would never leave me. So, then I started praying differently. I started asking for everyone in the whole wide world to become a Christian. I guess I always had an evangelistic heart. Several years after that, as a teenager, I guess enouh "stuff" had happened to me, that I became discouraged and wasn't even praying at all.
Of course, God brought me back around to Him as an adult, but I've wondered why is it we don't come to Him with the pure love and innocence of a child just wanting the basics...for Jesus to just forgive us, be our best friend, and bring everyone else to that same place? It seems sweet and cute to ponder on the way I prayed as a child. Of course I know we don't HAVE to keep asking Him to be our Lord and Savior. Once He is, He is. But I think there was something else happening during those prayers. I was really asking in the words of child for Him to examine me. I was really expressing my desire to please Him. That is what we are supposed to do right? …ask Him to examine our hearts? We're supposed to ask Him to show us where we need to change. I realize now how pleased God was to know and hear that my heart only wanted to please Him. Our words sound different as adults, but we have the same heart’s desire. Sometimes, I feel that my life has just become too complicated. Sometimes, I just need a break. I need the simplicity of a child...to simply communicate in a few words my heart’s desire to my Lord. Then maybe I can just skip off to my day and have the same joy I had as a child.
Amie Spruiell
11/18/2011
