Heed the call

Five years to the day. One thousand eight hundred and twenty five days. Forty three thousand eight hundred hours. Two million six hundred twenty eight thousand seconds.
It was on November 2, 2009 that I surrendered my life to Christ. I didn't wake up on that morning anticipating a dramatic life change or conversion experience. It was just a Monday and who expects anything earth shaking to happen on a Monday?
November 2, 2009 was anything but a boring, mundane Monday. In fact, it is the most extraordinary and miraculous of days I have yet to experience in my life. It all started with the haphazard decision to open a book. I had purchased the Oswald Chambers devotional book a week or so earlier while vising Parkside Church but I had yet to open it. At the time of purchase (and on the morning of November 2, 2009) I was living in an out-and-out state of rebellion against God and my parents. I don't know what possessed me to buy that devotional in the first place given the state of my spiritual life but something, or someone, planted in me a seed that took that book to the checkout line in my hands. From there it traveled back to college with me where it would stay in its bag until that fateful Monday morning.
For some reason that I will never know I decided to open that devotional on that particular Monday morning. And in it I found God's call on my life: complete surrender. I finished reading the day's short devotional and immediately committed my life to Christ. I asked for forgiveness for my rebellion and ugly sin. Then I decided to obediently follow wherever God would lead.
Since that day I haven't been perfect, trust me on that! I've made mistakes, had setbacks and been angry with God for allowing hardship to befall my life. But God has always forgiven me. Even when I've ignored Him for days on end He has always taken me back.

My road of obedience all began with that one simple decision to open a book. I still don't know what possessed me to open it or why I choose November 2. I look back on that day now and I can see that it was the hand of God guiding me to the words He had destined for me on that particular day. He stirred my heart, my hears perked up, I listened and the course of my life was forever changed.
Dear Reader, if God calls, listen. If He tugs on your heart, pay attention. If He sends you a word, read it. You never know how that one little decision to follow God in the small, seemingly insignificant details of life may impact the entire course of your future.
On November 2, 2009 I thought I was just reading a few paragraphs in a book. Little did I know I was about to be reborn. And it all happened with a single decision to repent, surrender and follow Jesus.
All it takes is one single decision for you, too. Heed the call. Make the decision.