I can’t think of any example of something major that I’m putting off. I could think of lots of little things, such as reading all the books on my bookshelf and attic that I have yet to read. And there are many that I’ve already read that I’d like to read again. And there are things that I need to do around the house that don’t demand immediate attention.
I think of the following joke:
If a husband says that he’ll do something, he’ll do it. You don’t have to keep reminding him every six months. 😀
I could mention the sort of things that I shouldn’t put off. Going to the doctor or the dentist is one. But if it’s not urgent, I tend to want to wait. But it’s a great feeling to get things out of the way. And haircuts! I don’t enjoy getting my hair cut by barbers. They sometimes ask me if I’m going to watch the game today. What game 😀? Perhaps someday, someone will invent an artificial intelligence (AI) haircutting device that I can use at home.
The biggest thing that I put off back in my teens was committing my life to Christ. When I was 13, I started to notice other religions around the world and many different Christian denominations. I didn’t just want to blindly follow those around me. I wanted to investigate different outlooks and see which one was most correct.
In my country, Roman Catholicism is the main religion. But my impression was that most people around me just went along with it to some degree because of culture and social pressure. Even back in the 1970s, when you got into deep conversations, people would speculate about all sorts of things, such as astrology and reincarnation. You got the impression that people “half-believed” in religion and would just go along with whatever religion happened to be in place to some degree.
You did get some religious Catholics, but they’d be into praying to Mary and Saints and statues etc., and I didn’t see any of that in the New Testament. I would have recited the “Hail Mary” which was the default prayer, but at that stage God seemed a more distant figure and it didn’t feel natural to pray in my own words to him directly.
Nowadays, I see Mary as an early example of an evangelical Christian. The last New Testament mention of her shows her praying with the other disciples on the day of Pentecost. I don’t imagine that the real Mary would be happy about all the Mary prayers and statues though I’m sure that she would be pleased to be an example to others, as all of us would.
Act 1:14
14 They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.
And you got some Catholics who were public-spirited and would engage in helpful community work, often based around churches, but you don’t need to be religious to do that.
You also had the Catholic charismatic movement. I was never really attracted to that. To me, it seemed like just a “happy clappy” social club. And many of the more serious-minded of them broke away and became the basis of the modern charismatic/pentecostal evangelical movement in Ireland. So, I met many of them in evangelical circles in later years, but I very rarely met a Catholic who was evangelically minded. It would be nice to see the Roman Catholic Church becoming more evangelical, but my impression is that modern Catholicism has more in common with the modernist/liberal side of Protestantism than with the evangelical side, though I do see some evangelical influences from time to time, such as the Alpha course and some evangelical music.
So, I didn’t have much confidence in Roman Catholicism, but I had confidence in Jesus himself, and when I started reading the Bible, particularly the New Testament, it struck a deep chord within me. And when I started meeting evangelical Christians, they seemed to be more aligned to what I found in the New Testament than other movements or denominations. You do get silly people among them and silly or sinister evangelical churches, but broadly speaking, I wanted to attend a good evangelical church, and there were perhaps 4 or 5 in Cork at that time. There are many more nowadays.
But I dithered over four or five years. I cover some of that in my Conversion Chronology post.
I sometimes wondered if all religions might be true. It seemed strange that Jesus would be the only way to the Father when there were so many other religions in the world. I also wondered if I’d have the courage to publicly identify as a Christian.
That might sound odd, given that I lived in a Christian country, but people who came across as “holy” were generally deemed a little odd, silly, or naive. In my teens, I craved popularity to some degree. That was well before the Simpsons, but you probably wouldn’t want people to see you as being like Ned Flanders – or his kids.
I think of the Old Grey Whistle Theft episode of Father Ted, where the young priest who’s a bad influence on Dougal notices rosary beads and accuses him of praying. Dougal is plainly embaressed that he mistakenly pulled them from his pocket and swiftly denies the allegation.
It’s funny because it’s true 😀. So, while there’s social pressure to be a nominal Catholic, few people respect devout Catholics or devout Christians of other denominations. That’s always struck me as odd, but Jesus did sometimes criticise those who paraded their spirituality, so maybe we’ve just swung to the opposite extreme 😀.
And some traditional Irish people might think that you were being disloyal to Ireland if you were seen to become a Protestant. Ireland stubbornly stuck with Roman Catholicism at the reformation, and because England went Protestant, anyone who was Protestant, even in Cork, wasn’t seen as very “Irish”, though many Protestants, such as Wolfe Tone, were involved in Irish rebellions.
Evangelical churches generally don’t like to classify themselves as Protestant though theologically they are. And another thing is that back in the 1970s, anything that wasn’t Catholic or Protestant tended to be classified as a cult. So, because some cults were dangerous, people saw any new religious groups as somewhat sininster. And evangelicals seemed new, although their history in Ireland goes back to the reformation era. For example, Cork Baptist Church was formed in 1640 and many argue that St.Patrick’s writings indicate that he had an evangelical outlook, though the term didn’t really come into use until the reformation and after.
And maybe, I had an idealized view of what a real Christian would be. And what hope would I have of becoming perfect overnight?
That soon changed when I read the New Testament. The early Christians were committed to Christ, but far from perfect in their own right. Just the other day, I read this verse in 1 Corinthians. What’s funny is that the Apostle Paul appears to think highly of them, but he spends the rest of the letter telling them how worldly and immature they still are 😀.
1 Cor 1:7-9
7 Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. 8 He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
The key thing about committing your life to Christ is you are willing to entrust yourself to him and learn from him. You might end up being a slow learner. I certainly am. But we don’t get to heaven on our own merits. We get to heaven because the Lord Jesus Christ died to save us. I finally committed my life to Christ in August 1980. Since then, I’ve noticed a good number of Bible verses and hymns that encourage us not to procrastinate or sit on the fence.
Acts 22:16
“And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on His name.”
The hymn “Almost Persuaded” was written by Philip P. Bliss in 1871. He composed both the lyrics and the music, inspired by a sermon referencing Acts 26:28, where King Agrippa says to Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.” Maybe Agrippa wasn’t serious, but often people might hear the gospel and have the intention of giving more attention to it, but get distracted. That’s covered in the parable of the sower.
“I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” originated in northeast India, specifically among the Garo tribe in the region of Assam (now Meghalaya), and its melody is based on an Indian folk tune.
And here are two Bob Dylan songs that had some role in nudging me into making a commitment rather than procrastinating. God used lots of different people and things to lead me to himself. I wasn’t a particular fan of Bob Dylan, but the Slow Train Coming and Saved albums had a big influence. Maybe God used them to undo the influence of all my punk rock albums 😀. Dylan didn’t stick with the gospel content for very long, but I still cherish these albums. And he still performs his gospel songs from time to time. He’s playing Killarney next month. I saw him in Earl’s Court London in 1981, so I don’t feel the need to go, but some of my family are going. It’ll be interesting to see if he sings any of the gospel songs.
Here’s an example of a later performance of one of his gospel songs. I think that this one is from 2003, but the original was on Slow Train Coming from 1979.
It was often pointed out to me by evangelicals that I spoke to when I was in my “searching” phase back in the late 70s that it wasn’t a matter of which denomination you follow. It was more about a personal relationship with Jesus. I did consider staying in the Roman Catholic church. But the main reasons I moved to evangelical churches was that they were more aligned to what I believed doctrinally, And I benefited greatly by being surrounded by people who had a real hunger for God’s word. I met some silly people from time to time, and I’m sure that I was silly myself at times, but that was, and still is my world 😀. And nowadays, I delight in all the resources I see on the web, some of which I list on my Recommended Audio Resources page.
Hibernia Gospel 