"I Stand All Amazed"

I stand all amazed at the love of Jesus. No one who’s given him their heart can help it. Ask me why, though, and my answer might not be the same as yours. We stand amazed in different ways because he saves us in different ways. All to the same end–to bring us back to the Father clean–but there are as many stories of how he gets us there as there are people to tell them.

I don’t know what it’s like to not believe in Jesus. And I count that among my greatest blessings. How much harder would an already difficult road be if I hadn’t been born and raised in faith? But we in that boat face a dangerous pitfall: the belief that being born into it makes us converted.

I’ve stepped in that one.

There’s another danger, though, where we don’t give enough credit to how converted we are.

I think I’ve stepped in that one more.

What Does a Conversion Story Sound Like?

Most, if not all, people who find Jesus later in life have a conversion story. Many could probably name the date they invited him in, tell you exactly where they were when they realized they needed him. What they were doing. What life looked like without him. And how life-changing that moment was when they made him a part of it.

Born again. That’s what you’d call an experience like that.

Many people born and raised believing have similar stories. A turning point where faith wasn’t what their parents chose for them anymore but what they chose. When they stopped idly floating on the stream, or doubting whether they wanted to be on it at all, and started intentionally paddling.

Christians by birth get born again, too.

Everyone should have a conversion story, whether they’re raised on Jesus or find him when they’re sixty.

For most of my life–right up to writing this, actually–I’ve never felt like I had one. Or considered what it is if I did. There has been no monumental turning point for me. No moment of burning, indescribable peace that changed my life forever. I’ve just always wanted this. The mission of Jesus has always rung true, and I’ve always believed in it.

But I’ve also always doubted whether I really knew how wonderful it was for me. Whether it’s ever gone from a general wonder to a very personal awe. Whether I could actually say with any confidence that his gift is mine.

So, without that glorious epiphany, that story where I did a one-eighty because the atonement finally hit home, I wasn’t sure I could say much about the message of this beautiful hymn that its verses haven’t already said better.

But here’s a different epiphany. If I haven’t been writing my conversion story on this blog for the last nine months, I don’t know what I’ve been writing.

The Savior I Stand All Amazed At

He wrote me on the palms of his hands.

It’s very easy when you’re perpetually single to doubt your worth. But when I asked Heavenly Father one day what I’m worth, he brought to my mind the image of the nail prints in the Savior’s hands. Do I need to say more? He didn’t.

You can read about that here: Can I Stop Waiting for My Life to Start Yet?

He is my Shepherd.

Whether we’re literally in the valley of the shadow of death or just in shadows that feel like death, Jesus walks us through them. He knows my shadows better than anyone because he walked through some pretty dark ones himself. His staff is a comfort as he leads me to higher ground.

You can read more of what I’ve learned about my Shepherd here: The Lord is My Shepherd

He weeps with me even though he knows I’ll be okay.

When Jesus came to Bethany after Lazarus died, I’m sure he knew exactly what he was going to do. But he didn’t tell everyone to stop crying, assure them he had this under control. He wept with them. Because the pain of their loss was real, even if he was about to turn it all around.

When he shows up at the tomb of my hopes, I believe he’ll make up for the years I’ve lost. But not before he acknowledges they were very hard to lose. He’ll shed some tears with me over the hurts. Then bring the joy.

You can read more about that here: When You Think Your Hope is As Dead as Lazarus

He is my friend.

I’ve had an image in my head of sitting on a stoop outside the back door, decomposing while I wait for God to answer my knock. One day, Jesus showed up in that picture, sat next to me, and silently put his arm around me. And there he’s stayed. He felt pretty forsaken himself once. He gets it.

You can read more about the friend I’ve found in him here: What a Friend We Have in Jesus

He helps me walk on water.

Sometimes Jesus calms the storm, but most often it seems it’s me he tells to be still. Which is hard when the waves are crashing and I’m frantically treading water, certain that if I stop, I’ll sink.

But if I am still, I see his outstretched hand. And hear his calm assurance that I don’t have to tread water. He can help me walk on it.

You can read more on that here: Master, the Tempest is Raging

Click on almost any other post and you can probably find more.

Prevention and Cure Both Save

I hope it’s possible to be born again over a lifetime because I think that’s what’s happening to me. My conversion to Jesus Christ has come a little at a time and in a dozen different ways.

And it hasn’t all been about saving a sinner. Which is maybe why I’ve been hesitant to claim it. Because it seems like to really know you’ve been saved, you have to have really been lost.

But maybe sometimes to really know you’re saved, you just have to know how lost you could be. And that sin isn’t the only shadow a person ever needed to be rescued from.

One sheep got lost, and that’s the one we always focus on because it’s so wonderful that the shepherd would leave the ninety and nine to go find it. But those ninety-nine have stories, too. And what they know about the shepherd’s love might rival any tales that lost sheep brings back.

Some people Jesus saves by pulling them off the path of destruction they wandered on to. Some he saves by keeping them off that path in the first place.

I think I’m one of the latter.

And I think it’s sixes whether prevention or cure is easier.

A Physician for All the Sick

If I’m not on the path God wants me on, I don’t know where he wants me. All my asking, seeking, and knocking has brought me here, and maybe I’m just dense. Maybe God’s up there waving his arms wildly and yelling, “Hello! Other way! Go! The! Other! Way!” Like a little league soccer coach watching in horror as one of his eager players determinedly steers the ball down the field toward his own team’s goal.

Am I that player? I’ve wondered.

But my heart says God has led me right where he wants me.

Let the record show that it’s felt like a path of destruction. Spiritually, emotionally. I’m surprised there aren’t physical manifestations of trauma yet.

Just because it’s God’s path doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, because it’s God’s path, it’s probably not.

Lots of pastures look greener.

I think I’m living proof that Jesus works just as hard on those of us who have every reason to eye them as he does on those who wander on to them. They say atheists are people who are angry at God, but there are lots of sheep in the fold who are angry at him, too.

If we don’t need a Savior to help us find the faith, we need one to help us keep it.

Jesus does it all.

When the Pharisees asked why he ate with publicans and sinners, he said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”

And I’ve struggled with that because those of us who try to stay on the strait and narrow get sick, too. Socked in the gut, slapped in the face, and driven to tears by a plan we want to trust but only God seems to understand. Why do only the worst of sinners get the physician?

But here’s my ultimate epiphany, the gift of Jesus I know is mine:

He would have told the Pharisees the same thing if they asked him why he was sitting on the back stoop being a friend to a skeleton named Heather.

You Have to Get to the Gate to Go Through It

I don’t want to diminish the fact that Jesus took the punishment for our sins. All our sins. Big or small, whether we stood on the brink of hell with no morals or were a relatively small-time sinner who tried to be good but was sometimes human, we can’t carry any of that into heaven. He is the only reason any of us will ever be clean enough to get through the gate.

nails and crown of thorns on the beam of a cross

But you can’t get through the gate if you can’t even get to it. And his sacrifice was about that, too. He suffered for sinners. But he also suffered for sufferers. So that no matter what depth of despair we might ever sink to, we’d have a friend who knew the feeling. If anyone can convince you it’s worth it to drink a bitter cup, it’s the man who drank his. If anyone can walk you through the shadows, it’s the man who walked through them first.

Strong enough to get to the kingdom and white enough to enter. In a nutshell, the Savior I stand all amazed at is the one who makes me all that. The friend, the shepherd, the power who saves me from a path of destruction by keeping me on my “path of destruction”. Holding me fast in the temporarily painful refiner’s fire so I don’t wander into an eternal, unquenchable flame that only looks like greener grass.

That is wonderful to me.

I hope you’ve found something here that’s brought you closer to your Savior. Writing it has certainly made me see him clearer than ever before. I would love to hear how he has saved you. Please share in the comments and pass this post on to anyone you think it might bless. Thank you for reading.