Elder Testimony: George Conklin – Oasis Elder Nominee

My Walk – June 23, 2009

Like everyone else I was born into the world, and knew nothing about everything. As a young child I went to Sunday school and later church.

By the time I was a teenager my family was going to church on Easter and Christmas. By then all I really knew about Jesus was what I learned from Christmas movies. God and Christ were nothing more than words and ideas that didn’t impact my life except for cool Christmas movies and they made me feel guilty for having fun.

As a husband and father the only change was that I had realized there was no God. Jesus who? Holy Ghost? Sounds like something to scare kids. I was an atheist, but like many when the chips were down I still would pray… to, in my eyes, a non-existent God. But if he DID exist, maybe he’d feel sorry and help me out, after all I was a pretty good person.

In my eyes God and I had gotten off on the wrong foot – Church was BORING, I had to go through God to get married, I started having seizures when I was 19 so no more beer/whiskey/wine for me, and later in life I would find out I had diabetes and was at risk for high cholesterol. Not fun, and all God’s fault…

So how did I decide there was no God? Simple, I heard that God always was and always would be and reasoned that was impossible for someone to exist forever and to always have existed – after all even the Universe had a big bang, and if the Universe had to come into existence somehow, then so did God…

In my early 30’s I met a friend and worked for him and he re-introduced God into my vocabulary. I was seriously re-thinking my life – you know, maybe God had done me a favor with seizures and no drinking, after all I have alcoholism in my family and my wife pointed out how mean I was when I was drinking. Come to think of it one night I was drunk at 19 I walked out in the street drunk, right in front of a police car driving by and was lucky enough not to get hit, maybe God did that, too. Before long I changed my life and decided I wasn’t giving up all of the sin I’d come to cherish so much – there had to be another way. I even dropped out of my friend’s life to avoid those pesky calls and emails that made me feel so guilty.

About 10 years passed and I ran into my friend again, and he still had that “I’ve got God” look about him and it made me nervous. He said we should get together sometime and do something. My wife and I talked and decided it couldn’t hurt and after all I was almost 40 and feeling like I’d gambled with enough of my life and it was time that I stop putting off really finding out a little bit about God. I mean what if he was for real and I went to Hell?!

I started by going to some dude’s meetings every now and again with my friend and some other dudes. A bible study here, a bible study there. I was reintroduced to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. During those bible studies my heart was changing slowly, and imperceptibly as Jesus slowly drew me closer and closer so he could let me know who he was and what he was all about. He was patient, after all he’d already waited for almost 40 years for me.

I learned about forgiveness and that Jesus would wash away my sins just for the asking if I believed in him, and later I learned that he’d already died for every single sin I’d commit during my entire life. I was blown away… all of them? I mean my life was already a catalog of the worst sins I thought a “good person” could commit, and Jesus already PAID for those and more of them with his blood, death and resurrection? He’d saved me already – but I hadn’t asked, I didn’t know, I was touched. For a time I asked my friend endless questions by email about Christ’s life, teachings, death and resurrection. Several times I prayed that Jesus would come and live in my heart and forgive me for a life of sin, not realizing that asking for forgiveness for something once was enough – even for almost 40 year’s worth of hideous sins against the Holy God of creation. All of them, every single one of them, wow!

Jesus loves me sins and all, and he will love you , too. Just come and ask him – oh, and you only need ask once, he’s REAL good at forgiveness, patience and just so much I could never tell it here.

George Conklin is married to Christine and he is a loving father to two girls.  George is bi-vocational web designer, blogger, and thinks Google is 2nd to the Coming of Jesus… and enjoys playing video games.