Because I felt that my intellect had led me astray before my conversion, I questioned initially whether or not I should go to college. Finally I sensed that God was leading me to go to Bible college; when I turned down a potential National Merit Scholarship because it would not cover Bible colleges, almost everyone thought I was crazy. After a summer of work, I set out for Missouri without even sufficient funds to pay for my full first semester.
When Bible college started, I was fasting two days a week, praying for God’s work on the campus. Although I had grown more cautious about listening to God’s voice, sometimes I heard things that made no sense to me. One evening early in my freshman year, for example, I was trying to study but kept getting distracted, as if God was telling me something for another freshman named Leslie. Specifically I felt as thought He wanted me to tell her that she was allowed to date, which in our circles meant a friendly relationship exploring the possibility of marriage. Personally I did not believe in dating; I thought people should just wait to hear from God about whom to marry.
Finally the impression felt so overwhelming that I asked to meet with her briefly. “I feel as though God is telling me something for you,” I prefaced, “but I don’t personally agree with it.” Naturally she looked skeptical, but she waited, so I proceeded. “I feel He’s saying that you’re allowed to date.”
She seemed stunned and at a loss for words for a few moments. “I haven’t told anyone on campus this,” she said finally, “but before my conversion I was divorced. I’ve been secretly asking God if I could date and someday marry.”
Ah, I thought, that explains what this was about. Relieved, I went back to my homework. I did not know her circumstances, but surely God would not hold anyone’s preconversion divorce against him or her any more than any other preconversion sin-my atheism, for example. When I discovered how some divorced Christians were treated, even when they had been abandoned against their will, I resolved to speak in their defense someday. Still, I was not in a position to understand their pain myself.
This post is by Craig Keener, but edited and posted by Defenders Media.
For more, please check out Dr. Keener’s Impossible Love.
