I Had to Stop

Isn’t it strange that we always seem to be busy and have little time to do 
what we really want to do. This song is about a crucial moment in my life when 
I needed to take stock and invest in a bit of self reflection. I wasn’t a 
committed Christian at this time but I delighted in talking about God, the 
Bible and the possibilities of a scientific explanation of the recorded 
miracles of the Word. The debate and passing comments were for me just a 
welcome distraction from the real issue of my soul. I was dangling over hell, 
on course for a lost eternity and I knew it! My life was quite complicated, 
being a young person; part of a dysfunctional family that was on the verge of 
breaking up and subsequently did. 
However, I thought I was smart enough to sort out my problems and neglecting 
that nagging feeling that Jesus might actually be the answer after all, gave 
me a sense of control, even if I was veering myself off course.
Donald was a little older than me and had been laying on the Gospel big time 
all night and I’d just been giving it back, but this time I wasn’t enjoying it 
the way I usually did. Conviction was looming over me and I was just about to 
call it a night to get out of the line of fire… then the crucial moment came. 
I didn’t realise it, but the Lord knew I needed five minutes; yes, just five 
minutes to churn over this heavy conversation that I’d just had in my mind… by 
myself! Donald was summoned away and even he looked a bit bewildered by what was happening. I think he thought that he was loosing a great opportunity to 
“get me saved” and into the Kingdom.
His hopes dashed, the spirit stifled, he excused himself and left me and God 
alone. This ‘space’ became a time of reflection for me, where I could begin to 
evaluate what I wanted out of life, where I could size up all the things I’d 
heard about Jesus and by the end of it, I knew that I needed Him. “He
(God) planned this!” I thought, and it was there that I invited Jesus into my 
life, asking Him to forgive me a sinner. Immediately a burden left me, I 
experienced an incredible sense of knowing that I was not alone and that all 
things had become new. The Lord seemed to transcend every thought I had, every 
objection; this was what I really wanted. I had to stop… to appreciate this. 
Perhaps you have been caught up with little time to take God seriously; your 
life and your thoughts are cluttered with the ongoing, unrelenting business of 
life an d the perpetual narrative of excuses in your head. I recommend that 
you stop right now, take a break and change to programme for a time of 
reflection. I found Him there… waiting patiently for me to be still, that I 
might discover Him.

BL