Darrell Day's Testimony

Darrell Day's Testimony

When I was 25 years old a lady approached me on the service station driveway and proceeded to tell me that Jesus loved me.  My reaction was to curse at her and as I did she started crying. She just stood there looking at me, with tears coming down her cheeks. Seeing her standing there crying embarrassed me so I turned and walked away.

I felt bad about what I had done but I knew why I had lost it with her.  I was an agnostic and from my perspective she was just plain stupid thinking she, number one knew there was a God, and two she knew who He was.  In my thinking, Christians just had some nebulous pie in the sky hope of the hereafter.

Well not long after that encounter, my life was about to make a quick and dramatic change.  My children asked me to take them to church which I had never done but I agreed to take them one time.  So two Sundays later we went to the nearest church to our home.  It turned out that the Pastor was out of town that morning and so they had arranged for a church member to bring the morning message.  You could see the surprise on my face when Don Willis stepped up to speak.  Don Willis had been one of my closest buddies. We played poker together, sometimes all weekend.  We also would go to the tavern, play shuffleboard and have a good time.  His jokes were the best.

Then all of a sudden he quit playing poker, drinking, etc, and I rarely saw him again.  So when I saw him that Sunday morning he had my attention, because I wanted to know why he was in church.  I knew why I was there - my kids.

I soon learned why he was there.  His final statement made it very clear.  With tears coming down his cheeks he said; “If Jesus Christ could get up there on that cross and die for me, the least I can do is get up here and tell other people about it.”  It was plain to see that something had radically changed his life.  The change in his life and the last words of his sermon were unshakable in my mind, and I could not let it go. 

Later at home that day I searched the house over for a bible, but there were none to be found.   There was however a children’s story book pictograph bible and I read it all day.  That evening I went to the church for their evening service, the first evening service of my life.

The Pastor was there for the evening service and thus he preached, however I can’t remember a word he said.  But he shook my hand at the door as everyone was leaving and he said these exact words “Darrell, is God trying to do something for you?” I looked at him and said “I don’t know, I hope so.”  Those words were straight from the heart of a agnostic.  I didn’t know if there was a God but if there was I hoped He wanted to do something for me.

As I was about to walk out the door he handed me a small pamphlet.   Later at home I read that pamphlet just before going to bed.  The main thing I remember reading in it was a quote from the Bible which said; “Jesus himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by his wounds you are healed.”  I put the pamphlet down and as I started to go to bed I stopped, stood there and said “Jesus are you real? Are you God? Did you really die on the cross for me? Do you really love me and want to come into my life? “If this is true you can have my life.”I’ve made a mess of it.”  I went on to bed and was lying there thinking of my life.  I thought about all the time I had spent apart from my family playing poker (Hundreds of Hours), and how I picked up the filthy habits of cussing, drinking, and smoking.  And then there was the matter of unfaithfulness.   Somehow I was seeing my life clearer than ever before.  It seemed reprehensible to me.  I felt so sorry for the people that I had injured by being uncaring. 

I said, “Jesus I’m sorry that my life is so ugly.”  I lay there in bed thinking of the ugliness and confessing somewhat like a little child to his mother, and amazingly it felt so natural to talk to Jesus as though he were in the room with me.  Then another amazing thing happened.  An awareness of God came over me and with it, an absolute assurance of forgiveness; a feeling as though a weight of guilt had lifted off my body.  A feeling of purity, security and peace overwhelmed me.   I cried and cried from the sheer joy of it all.

At that time I did not have to describe what was happening to me, as I do now.  I only had to enjoy it, which I did, more than a thirsty, dying man would enjoy water.  But now, trying to describe in words what my spirit experienced is very difficult.  But I can tell you that the emptiness of being an agnostic was shattered.  I was no longer twisting in the circumstances of ignorance.  God had brought me into the place of His infinite “wisdom and insight.” (Eph 1:8)  I had met God, and God had set me free.    

 “O taste and see that the Lord is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him.” Psalms 34:8