Praying to be Saved

The last time I remember praying to be saved and believing it was possible was when I was about 12, at summer camp. The name of the camp was Silverstate and it was a pretty typical Bible camp in the Colorado foothills, somewhere along Highway 67 out of Sedalia, on the way to Devil’s Head.

Bible camp can be a new experience for any young person, maybe that is the whole point. But I was homeschooled. I didn’t have many opporunities to hang out with other kids and even fewer to hang out with other kids that weren’t homeschooled, so it was particularly new to me.

I remember there was a boy with asthma. I can’t remember if I knew him, I don’t think I did, I just remember a camp counselor talking about how he died. It was out playing baseball on their big baseball field they carved out of the otherwise densely packed Ponderosa Pines of the Pike National Forest. The elevation wasn’t as extreme as you will find in most of the Rocky Mountains, but it was high enough to feel a certain tightness when you breathe, and more so for the kids who came from other states. It was some combination of the elevation and the activity that induced the asthma attack.

I remember the camp counselor describing how it felt to try and help him, the helplessness he felt as the boy’s life slipped away, and thinking about all the vital oxygen around them that could save his life if only it could somehow reach his lungs. He told us about the sadness and confusion he faced, grappling with the reality that such a young life could be taken away by God, for that is how he understood the loss of any life, even a child’s. But he also told us about the comfort he had knowing this boy was now in heaven, for he had prayed to be saved just that week.

I prayed to be saved that week.

Well, not just that week, I had been praying to be saved for quite some time already. I faced a difficult reality at home. And as a home school kid, the vast majority of my reality was home. They told me that when you are saved, Jesus comes into your heart, and you feel peace and safety. I wished for peace and safety above all other things. And in those moments, surrounded by people who suddenly seemed to care, I did feel safe. I was convinced each time that it was real, and later losing that certainty when the peace no longer felt real.

They told me that the whole reason you have fear at all is because you have sin. They told me that the only path to true peace was through inviting Jesus into your heart. Jesus could not live in a heart that had sin, but Jesus could clean that sin away. Jesus is waiting for you to ask and surrender, because that has to be your free choice. I pictured my heart without Jesus as a dark, yucky place, because that was the literal illustration we saw in Sunday School. And I pictured my heart if Jesus could wash it clean as pure and white as snow, because those were the words of songs we sang. It’s all there in John 3:16-21, I learned it by heart.

When the peace and safety no longer felt real, how else could I understand it except as sin that was still there? My experience at home was incompatible with a feeling of peace and safety, but I believed it was because of my sin. They told me that when you are saved you are changed forever. Sure, you may feel afraid sometimes, but it will be different with Jesus in your heart. There must have been some sin kept Jesus from moving in permanently. I think everyone saw me as a pretty good kid, maybe even too good. But that is not how I saw myself.

So when the pastor would give the invitation to the alter, something pretty familiar in a Baptist church service, I would answer the call every now and then, convinced that it might work this time, I needed it to work this time. This is the story about the last time I believed it might work.