Back to evading God...I was a really polite, well-behaved, conscientious evader. I did this little two-step with God, where I was leading, or at least I thought I was. Arrogantly, I sincerely thought that if God would just listen to me I could set my world right. All I needed was his cooperation. I mean, after all, it was my life for crying out loud...wasn't it?

Lo, and behold, while I was playing "Let's Make a Deal" with God, he surreptitiously sent a few brave people into my world who gently began to tell me the truth about me and how my game-show mentality would not satisfy my soul. They told me the truth about how much God loved me and showed me that love by parting with his one and only Son.

I sort of knew who Jesus was and that he died on my behalf - to pay the penalty for my sins against God, I was told - but I had a doozy of a time seeing myself as a sinner. Sure, I had lied a few times, sassed my parents, stolen a few items from a department store...but those were just small indiscretions, nothing to get all upset about. Surely not bad enough to be called "sins".

Fortunately for me, those same folks who came into my life were patient enough to lead me to the water but not try and force me to drink it. In other words, they gave me the whole story of how the first man and woman (Adam and Eve) had the entire created world at their disposal, except one little 'ole tree that God told them not to eat from. And then how they chose to believe a liar who encouraged them to open their mind to the possiblity that God was holding back from them. So, they listened to the lie and thought they could find life a part from the giver of life. Hence the beginning of sin. They brought me to the water and asked me if I was thirsty. Turns out I was.

When I finally saw myself in that story, I knew that I had also believed I could find life somewhere other than God. At that point I had to make a decision to either believe that God wanted relationship with me and provided that through his Son, or to keep on looking and hope that I would stumble on the secrets of the universe and find life on my own.