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

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