James Gordon's Story
James was a committed agnostic who came to a trusting faith in Jesus Christ through the sensitive but persistent witness of a work colleague. This is the testimony he gave in a advance of being publicly baptised in the River Ness.
 This is all still a bit of a shock to me…
A year or two ago, I would never have imagined I’d be standing here doing this today. I was, in effect, an atheist, although I called myself an agnostic on the purely rational grounds that you can’t prove a negative. I thought I understood what Christianity was about and I didn’t connect with it, although I did value a lot of the music and art that it has inspired over 2000 years.
Mostly I was indifferent to it, thinking I could manage well enough by myself: I buried myself in work and spent most of my spare time alone in the hills, maintaining an illusion of independence. Looking back now, I can see that I was pretty frustrated and ever more fed up, but I never recognised it at the time.
Work and whisky
There were moments when something else tried to break through. For example, on a work trip to Uist, setting the world to rights one evening with a couple of colleagues over a bottle of whisky, as you do, when I blurted out that morality doesn’t make sense without God. It ended the evening rather abruptly: one colleague immediately took the opportunity to go to bed; the other changed the subject and we talked of nothing in particular for a few minutes before we too had had enough. I’ve wondered since what I would have said if they had challenged me. It wasn’t what I thought I believed at the time and I wouldn’t have had a ready answer.
A series of coincidences leading to Tim
A few months later, through a series of coincidences and improbable events which I don’t have time to describe in detail and which, taken together, are far too unlikely to be mere chance, I found myself working with Tim. I had no part in recruiting him; he was given to me to line manage as part of a restructuring exercise. He was a new member of staff and I was meant to be showing him what to do, but I soon realised that he was teaching me far more than I could ever teach him. He didn’t make a big show of being a Christian, but he dropped it into the conversation as early as his third day at work. At first it was more his whole approach that struck me.
Tim makes light of everything, in every sense of those words. A reflected light, of course, but a mirror only reflects if it’s pointing in the right direction. He always stresses the positives before going on to deal with the problems. When evidence is scarce, he is usually able to take a leap of faith and back it up with whatever scraps he can find, somehow convincing even a sceptical audience. I saw it many times in work situations. Which is probably why, when I finally found myself driven to ask, I could follow him in the most important leap of faith of all.
Canadian conference
From the start, Tim put the emphasis where it must be – on God, not on us. We were at a conference in Canada – another “coincidence”, as Tim was able to combine a work trip with seeing Melanie. In 5 minutes walking down the main street in Whitehorse, Yukon (the one blot on 1000 miles of pristine landscape), we had the conversation that changed my life. Tim can’t remember most of what he said and neither of us can understand how he said so much in so short a time, but I know he did as I wrote it down on the flight home. “There’s beauty and pattern in everything, even in what seems like ugliness and brutality”, he told me, and went on to quote Jesus’ very first recorded words, from
Mark 1, 15:
TIM: “The time has come”, he said. “The kingdom of God is here. Repent and believe the good news!”
Those words stayed with me. When I got home, I found a Bible and sought them out, and carried on reading. Nearly a year later, I’m still reading.
A sense of emptiness
For a long time, we didn’t talk any more; I didn’t know what to ask. Then, one night in December, I was lying in bed. Suddenly – I was wide awake – I had what I can only describe as an apprehension of total and utter nothingness, sheer blank despair. There was no terror or panic; I knew where I was. Indeed, while it happened, there was no physical sensation at all, just emptiness. I cried out – and then, at one in the morning, without thinking about it, I found myself texting Tim: Help me please. It only seemed a crazy thing to do later on.
When we came to talk about it, he listened – and understood: ‘Who were you crying out to?’ I didn’t know, or wouldn’t say. I wasn’t ready to admit I needed Christ. But somehow, I sensed that this was about where I was heading. Later, I read in Job 33, 14-18:
TIM: For God does speak - now one way, now another – though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.
The devil and sin are real
After that, we talked whenever we had a moment alone – driving back from meetings, on trains, sometimes walking home after work. I was far too self-conscious to have that sort of conversation in front of colleagues in the office. Early on, not shying from difficult issues, Tim made me see the devil as real – and suddenly a lot of things made sense. He stopped in the lane one night and said to me, speaking of himself, ‘I am a sinner, I have sinned’. And he went on to explain what grace is about. It took my mind a while to catch up with where I was being led. But slowly, by trusting and looking up to Tim, who was always trusting and looking up to Christ, I found myself looking in the same direction and sharing in some of the same light. And, because he made light of it all, he made it easy to bear.
In March, I realised I needed to do something more than talk. ‘Have you tried praying?’ Tim asked. Embarrassed, I said I didn’t know how to, but somehow I managed to stumble through the Lord’s Prayer and add a few words of my own. ‘You’re welcome to come to church with me,’ he said, ‘ although my church is a bit wacky!’ He offered to take me somewhere else if I wanted but, when I thought about it and realised I needed to go somewhere, something or Someone told me it was probably something a bit wacky that I needed. After all, nothing else had ever got through to me. This guy made sense to me, so it seemed right to try what made sense to him. I first came to ICF on 22 March and I haven’t looked back.
Confession of need for forgiveness..
On Easter Saturday, at home, I admitted that I too am a sinner and need Christ. I was on my knees, praying through Psalm 51. I won’t read the whole thing but I will quote a few verses:
Psalm 51:1-2, 7,11-13. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin…Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Do not cast me from your presence or take your holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Then will I teach transgressors your ways and sinners will turn back to you.
... led to faith in Christ
Next day, when Ian led us in the sinners’ prayer, I realised I’d been there and done that already – or at least I used that as an excuse not to put my hand up. But I’m grateful that someone else did!
These last months, particularly here and at Highland Festival, one thing after another has seemed to click into place in my life. As Tim texted me once:
TIM: Philippians 4:13; I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
I didn’t ask for this – at least, I wasn’t aware that I did; I didn’t even know I needed it. But somehow, Christ found me, and now I realise I need Him, and now I’m asking – and, by asking, in some amazing way that I don’t understand, being given. The leap of faith is easy once you realise there’s Someone on the other side, and it’s not a leap in the dark but a leap towards the light.
The answers are in the Bible
There’s a lot more I could say but I’ve talked for long enough. A few weeks ago, I found the Scripture that sums it all up. When I ask Tim a difficult question, he often finds an answer in Paul. So it seems appropriate that the lines I finish with come from Paul’s second letter to Tim’s namesake:
2 Timothy 2:24-26; The Lord’s servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.
Those lines have come alive for me over the past years: God at the centre; Tim, the Lord’s servant; me, the nameless character led by his example to repentance. Not just words on a page, but words brought to life by the Spirit and enacted by us – literally, words made flesh. And when that happens, anything is possible – even me volunteering to walk into the River Ness for a cold bath!
Thank you, Lord, for not giving up on me.
Thank you for showing me the light through Tim.
Thank you for bringing me to this place – and to everyone here for being so welcoming. Help me, Lord, to do what I can’t do for myself – and, if it be your will, to help others who find themselves where I was a year ago.
Accept this symbolic act we are about to perform, that you wash away our sin and lead us to a new life in you.
Amen.
Ed footnote:
James was baptised along with five others in the River Ness (Inverness). You can see a short video of the service on Christians Together (including an interview with pastor Ian Ross) and a brief article about the event.
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JG/Christians Together, 20/08/2009 |
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