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by Mark Hikes (Author)
I refer to myself as a late in life Christian. I'm not sure if that is an official term or not, but it is just my way of saying that I did not accept Jesus into my life until I was older. I was forty-four to be exact. It happened on February 13th, 2013. The date is important. It was one of the moments in my life that I like to refer to as a Spiritual Checkpoint. Some people might call them aha moments, lightbulb moments, God winks, divine appointments, or "God-incidences" as Pastor Jim likes to call them. They're those moments in your life, when you immediately pause and reflect on something that JUST happened. You pause because of something special you feel, or because of something that happens, or something that someone says to you, helps you finally make sense of something.
In my case, these checkpoints are specific important things that led to me becoming a Christian, and since then have brought understanding to me on my journey with Jesus. There have been "things" that have happened. There have been people that have happened. While all of them are important to guiding me, some of them have been HUGE, and some have been small. Some of them have come at a time when I was struggling with understanding, and they happened right when I needed them to. Others occurred and I did not even realize it, until somewhere down the path, something happens and I smile, as I reflect back and say to myself, "That's it, that's why He gave it to me. That's why He showed me that. That's why He put that person in my life. That's why that conversation happened." I'm sure that many of you are nodding your head right now thinking hmm, yep, it happens to me all the time. Some of you may think I'm crazy, and that's ok. I have had some things happen in my life recently, including writing a book, called 15 Minutes with Jesus, which by the way is one of my spiritual checkpoints, which have made me want to share my journey with Jesus, in this book, with you. Writing my first book was a powerful experience, and this was also. You see, I'm not telling you my story, because I think it's better than yours. I didn't decide to tell my story because I feel like I'm better than you. After all, it's not even my story. It's His story and He is just using me to tell it, to share it. You see, me being a Christian doesn't make me better than anyone..... It simply makes me better than I was. My relationship with Jesus is not complicated, it's not difficult, and it's certainly NOT perfect on my part. But it is real. I'm just an ordinary, run of the mill guy, who wants to share His story, the story of how Jesus has affected my life and worked in me and through me, because I think that it is similar to many people who will read this book. Or, maybe this book is going to be your nudge to spend more time with Jesus.
