Signs of Life
a Saturday Story
Way back in 1998 I made my first trip to India with a missions group. We were serving in Hyderabad. I am writing this several weeks in advance, but if everything has gone according to plan, I am again in Hyderabad when you received this email. In 98 I met a young man who was one of the first converts from a particular tribal group. He spoke English fairly well, and we developed a friendship.
To get to know him, I asked him typical questions about family, work, and school. At one point I asked him how old he was. He told me he didn’t know for certain, but he guessed around 30 years old, a little younger than me. He went on to explain that among his tribal group, the date of one’s birth isn’t tracked. They don’t celebrate birthdays, and the day and year of one’s birth are often forgotten or only remembered in a general time frame sense.
I found that interesting, and I thought a lot about how that illustrates a misconception common among evangelicals. It has been a thing in certain circles to deal with people’s doubts about their salvation to point them back in time and ask them if they remember a time when they prayed a prayer for salvation. The logic is, if they prayed a prayer or made some kind of conversion commitment sometime in the past then they must be born again.
While I don’t think that is a completely unwarranted thing to do, Paul often wrote about his Damascus Road conversion; I do think it is a weak foundation on which to build one’s assurance. Let’s imagine my tribal friend telling me that he didn’t know when he had been born and me telling him that if he didn’t know and couldn’t remember when he was born then he wasn’t alive. (I realize this isn’t a perfect analogy but hang with me). My tribal friend’s response is obvious and simple: All he has to do is say, “I know I was born because I am alive today!” That is true and an obvious point.
In like manner, the best way to be assured of spiritual life is not to look back to some experience or event and point to that as proof of being born again. The best evidence of spiritual life is that you are alive. If you are spiritually alive today, then you had to have been born again at some point in time in the past. You may or may not remember the date and the details. It’s great if you do, but even if you don’t, if you are alive today in the present you were born again one day in the past.
