There are a lot of 40’s in the Bible. Dozens of times the number appears.
- It rained for forty days and nights so Noah had enough water to float his ark.
- The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years.
- Jesus fasted and lived in the desert for forty days.
- Jesus walked the earth for forty days between his resurrection and his ascension.
And many more.
It’s a Bible number, like three, seven or twelve. Must be something about forty that God likes. The intentionality of its use means that God must have wanted us to connect some dots to teach us something, but I am not smart enough to even guess what that is.
But I can count.
Forty years ago this week, I became a Christian. Prior to that date, I was a churchgoer and knew the books of the Bible and a bunch of Bible stories, but I didn’t know Jesus. I only knew “about” him.
There is a difference.
The former is inside and transforming. The latter is outside and on the perimeter, like a spaceship orbiting a planet and never landing.
The embarrassing part was that forty years ago I was attending a Christian college, the one from where Billy Graham graduated. I sat in a freshman intro-to-theology class and realized I had no idea what the professor was talking about.
Then one day in early October, 1974, while taking notes in the class, something happened. My eyes were opened, the truth came in and the information that until that time had lived in my head fell twelve inches to my heart and I finally knew God, and he knew me.
Spiritual blindness was real and absolute. I was blind, but then I saw.
One of the first things I read after that life-altering event was a short book by J.B. Phillips, Your God Is Too Small. Originally written in 1952, it is one of those foundation-rattling books that every Christians should read at some point.
Looking back over forty years, while I failed God many times, he has never failed me.
Ever.
My spiritual growth-graph is not a straight line up at a forty-degree angle. It has some zigs and several zags in it. At each turning point in my life, the written word in the form of the Bible or a book has been the pivot-point on which my life turned back on course.
Who can read Your God is Too Small and not feel challenged to re-think your inadequate image of God?
Who can read In His Steps and not feel a tug on every move you make to be different than the world?
And forty years later, something more current…
Who can read Gods at War by Kyle Idleman and not feel deep in your bones that this is a fallen world where everything around us is vying to replace God?
Books and THE book. Iron sharpening iron.
One of the great benefits of being a Christian for a long time is that God proves himself faithful so many times. I still hesitate to criticize the Israelites too much for wandering away and forgetting stuff repeatedly for 40 years in the desert, since I’ve been doing that myself for the same length of time.
Maybe what you write will be a pivot point for someone.
Other than Scripture, what book was important at the beginning of your Christian walk?
Read All You Want – For Free!
I came to faith in Christ around that same time, at age 15. The Chronicles of Narnia helped me begin to both understand and imagine what my new life was about.
1974 was my first year of college also. The books that influenced my early walk were all by C.S. Lewis, _Mere Christianity_, _The Screwtape Letters_, and _The Great Divorce_.
Not at the beginning of my walk, but “When God Whispers Your Name” by Max Lucado changed my life. His book helped me understand that God wanted to be a father to me…
Happy Anniversary! What treasure to look back seeing He is faithful in His faithfulness. I know you would not be surprised, but the books marking my beginning would be Christy by Cathryn Marshal and by David Wilkerson, th cross and the Swtch Blade. There I found words powerful to a young forming mind and heart. My day was 10 February 1972.
Thanks for sharing your story, Dan. It’s good to know we are about the same vintage, except I have been aging a bit longer.
The early influence books I read? Wow. Where to start. The Screwtape Letters–Sit,Walk,Stand by Watchman Nee (and everything else Watchman Nee wrote), Destined for the Throne.
Being an engineer, and thus an analytical thinker, I really needed Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict. I literally, and I do mean literally, wore it out and had to go buy a new one.
Simply an awesome blog.
Great post Dan. I won’t tell you where I was forty years ago, but I will say I wasn’t in college yet. 😉
I became a Christian at 14 years old. One of the most impacting booklets was My Heart, Christ’s Home. That little booklet helped me to visualize what it meant to have Christ living in me. Loved it. Another booklet was Tyranny of the Urgent, which I read when I was in college.
Other influential books as I grew older: Screwtape Letters, The Soul Winner, by Charles Spurgeon, Hinds Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard and Passion and Purity. One of the biggest ones that influenced my desire to be more intimate with God was Charles Swindoll’s Intimacy With the Almighty.
I’too’ was a church-goer, had been confirmed, and thought I was a Christian until I read The Robe by Lloyd Douglas when I was 14 years old. That book really made me a Christian. If only my writing could transform even one person’s life that way.
Yes, Congrats. I had my 40th 2 years ago.
40 is the number of trails and temptations. And when you come out of it, that is a good thing!
I was so hungry for the word when I was born again, I didn’t read much at first but like you I loved In His Steps. When I read it, I didn’t know it was fiction. I was really disappointed when I figured it out. But the way we should be.
The Hiding Place may have been my favorite but, Hinds Feet on High Places, The Cross and the Switchblade, Foxe’s book of Martyrs and God’s Smuggler all devoured.
I share your experience of “knowing all about God” while lacking that personal relationship that comes when someone is “born again.” I was always a church-goer literally from my birth. I sang in the choir and even directed the children’s choir in late high school. I went to church almost every Sunday even in college and graduate school. What I’d learned in biochemistry guaranteed that my belief in a creator would survive all my training as a scientist. Still, I didn’t make that genuine emotional commitment until the first weekend in October when I was 28. That set a new vector for my life that I still travel. It also gave me a deep desire to share my faith with others and to encourage them to come to Jesus as savior, too.
I love Your God is Too Small and have often recommended it. A.W. Tozer and Andrew Murray always feed me meat. While the list of books that have inspired me is long, I’d like to mention a few that I think also help equip me to share the Good News with others. They have helped me to “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (I Peter 3:15)
John Stott’s books, especially Basic Christianity for someone who is seeking
Chuck Missler’s books for evidence to open the minds of the scientifically inclined and other skeptics. An example is The Creator Beyond Time & Space.
Lee Strobel’s books: The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ
Carol, Lee Strobel’s books blew my mind. His story about being an atheists trying to disprove Christianity… wowzers. I share his story with friends of mine who are searching.
Dan, Happy Anniversary and many, many more! Love your phrase, “fell twelve inches to my heart.”
I, too came to God out of church and am trying to share the experience through one of the stories my writing partner and I are readying for the market. One of our characters is a logic-driven cattleman focused on building a Longhorn empire. He has known all about God most of his life, but comes face to face with Him midway to the top.
It has been fascinating trying to articulate the experience in the voice of a man–one who would never utter the emotional phrases we women are allowed. (I married a cattleman–he wouldn’t.) Hope you will be inspired to say more in the future.
Congratulations, Dan! I was 4 when I entered the kingdom (so that was 50+ years ago…) I don’t have an exact date.
CS Lewis, along with George MacDonald, were my go-to’s for insightful, thoughtful Christianity in late grade school and high school. Beyond those two, there were numerous authors whom the Spirit used to change my thinking and acting. I am so grateful for writers who hang in there and have their works published. I, too, hope to be among them someday!
Congratulations! What a milestone. I pray for you another 40. Though not early in my Christian life, but a book that hit my heart in a refreshing way at a significant time in my growth, was John Eldredge and Brent Curtis’s “The Sacred Romance”. It was a spiritually freeing book that exhorted me to look at my relationship with Jesus in another light.
Thanks for telling us your story. Nothing is more powerful. For me, the turning point was Catherine Marshall’s The Helper. Theory suddenly became relationship, and my entire world changed.
A great post for today! I found the Lord in 1987. Two books that heavily influenced me are the devotional “My Utmost for His Highest” and Charles Capps little book, “The Tongue: A Creative Force.” Both books forever changed me.