Our sense organs 45

friends whom I could consult. The book served as
a substitute friend. What was even more important:
It showed me in a very practical and stepby-step
way how to pray and how to entrust
one’s life to Jesus Christ. I followed these instructions
carefully. It was very important for me to
see from this book that all my steps were based
on the Word of God and did not depend on my
own feelings. It also dealt beforehand with doubts
that might eventually have arisen. On a certain
definite and unforgettable day in September
1994 Jesus Christ became my Lord and Saviour.
Ever since Jesus has become my Lord, I have
been free from all the negative influences which
plagued me when I had dabbled in the occult.
I have experienced the living Jesus Who helps us
today the moment we are prepared to entrust
ourselves entirely to His hands. The time we
spent in that remote town (which we have meanwhile
left), now seems to me like an exile given to
me to come to my senses and to find God. I am
grateful and happy that God arranged things in
such a way that I acquired all the books which
helped me to find salvation, and provided practical
guidance about praying to Jesus Christ and
accepting Him as Lord and Saviour, which I found
in the book Questions I have always wanted to ask.
Astrid K. (Münster, Germany, aged 35)
Questions looking for answers
My wife Carola, and I, Lutz Meyer, accepted the
Christian faith about five years ago. We are very
grateful to God that we jointly came to saving
faith, and I would like to briefly describe this:
I had no contact with the Christian faith for
many years after participating in children’s hours
and in the activities of Christian youth organisations
in my young days. Even when I was confirmed
at a later stage, it was purely a formality,
done because everybody else did it. But it did not
in any way affect my relationship to God. This
godless condition lasted until I was 27 years old.
At that time I was already acquainted with my
present wife. She experienced strong rejection
during her teacher training course because of her
conservative moral attitude – lecturers and fellow
students simply assumed, incorrectly, that
her stance reflected her Christian beliefs. God
used this situation to make us question things.
We looked for reasons for the emphatic rejection
of, on the one hand, marriage, conjugal fidelity,
family, the traditional roles of husband and wife,
and, on the other hand, the intense rejection of
Christianity. Because we were considering a
future together as marriage partners, based on
classical family roles, we grew curious. Was there
a possible connection between our perception of
the roles of husband and wife and the Christian
faith? The aggressive approach taken by others
prompted us to deeply question such things. We
actually got into some rather hard discussions
among ourselves, but without having any real
basis to go on.
At that time we became acquainted with a refugee
family through a practical assignment of my
wife. Through these people, we came to understand
the connection between our ideas about
family, and the Christian faith. We are very grateful
to God for the witness and prayers of this
family, which were a great help on our way to
finding faith. God used this circumstance to
involve us more and more with Christianity for
just over a year.
As a mechanical engineer I was interested in science,
and I wanted to resolve for myself the
question of “creation versus evolution”. If I was
going to believe the Bible, and finally have solid
ground beneath my feet, I needed to believe it
from beginning to end. I was not interested in
philosophies and religious theories anymore;
these only produced partial answers. Books like
Did God Use Evolution? and What About the
Other Religions? were a great help at that time.
After God had made it abundantly clear to us in
various ways that we needed to be converted,
certain questions still blocked the way, probably
because of ignorance. Questions like: Have we
really come far enough? Do we know enough?
Have we changed sufficiently? Here we were
greatly helped by the book What About the Other
Religions? It showed clearly that our conversion
did not depend on any prerequisites on our side.
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