I came to Christ in repentance for the first time while I was in the seventh grade. Though I had grown up in church and had an intellectual understanding of salvation, the word which I heard profited me little since it was not mixed with faith. It was at a Grace Community Church winter camp where I first realized what a hateful person I am. My heart was ripe with selfishness and conceit, and though I was polished on the outside, my inside was filth and decay. Now many years later, my heart is still ripe with selfishness and conceit, but I am no longer so presumptuous as to think that I could ever merit my own justification. The righteousness credited me that day (and ever since) is wholly the Lord's.

In the years which immediately followed my salvation, my life continued to be blessed with the infusion of godly men who became a worthy pattern for my young life. It was there in junior high where I took my first shaky steps in prayer (The Hour That Changes The World!) and began trying my hand at the sometimes terrifying task of evangelizing. In high school God blessed me despite myself by saving and reconciling to Himself many of my closest friends, so that by the time I graduated I had seen many times over the power of a transformed life.

If I were to map my ensuing spiritual journey, I would say that going away to college (Washington State University) brought me face to face, both by necessity and inspiration, with the glory of God's sovereignty. There, with the help of Campus Crusade and Fellowship of Christian Athletes, I found that many in secular academia were far more open to Christ than those I had met at my "Christian" high school. Upon graduating college my contemplations turned to the surpassing worth of God and what it means to find my satisfaction in his glorification (Thank you John Piper). While living for a year in Nashville and attending a Presbyterian Church of America I poured over the likes of Augustine, Calvin, and Edwards, marveling at my shallow understanding of theology. When God opened the door for me to enter full-time, pro-life work, the apologetics of Francis Shaeffer and C.S. Lewis became beloved companions.

The theme of my meditations today would have to be grace, for it is truly a glorious scandal that a holy God would deal mercifully with unholy me. Even at the depths of my guilt and shame I ascribe to myself a far too generous assessment than my condition can merit. Thankfully, my highest perception of God's love is equally insufficient so that His care for me is also unfathomably more than I could ever imagine. In the end, I find myself exhibiting far too much grace towards my own fleshly compromise and far too little to the unredeemed world. Thankfully, J.C. Ryle has helped recommit me to the knock-down, drag-it-out fight of sanctification, and Philip Yancey has reminded me that Christ extended grace to the very portion of the nonreligious world which seemed to deserve it least.

From January 1999 through June 2004, God blessed me with the tremendous opportunity of working full-time on behalf of the unborn with the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. For the first time in my life I knew what it was to be utterly despised for my faith, and I knew the supernatural thrill of standing in the face of ridicule with nothing but love for the one spewing insults. As I travelled the country debating the essence of life and death, I found that there are no insignificant conversations and no insignificant people. There are, in fact, no mere mortals since every man or woman with whom we talk is a being which is created in the image of God and is a being which will dwell for all eternity in paradise or damnation. My new vocation also provided me the humbling experience of raising my own salary, revealing the utter reproach I have for being dependent. Dependence, of course, is the essence of Christianity, which is built entirely on the concession that we are thoroughly helpless save for Christ. In that sense, it has been my painful privilege to be daily reminded that I can make no claims on independence.

I am forever arriving at places in my life where I feel as if I've finally attained a sufficient level of spiritual understanding. It is invariably at these points of arrival when a new precipice of insight opens up before me and my utter ignorance is again revealed (I just arrived at a new one in March of 2001, it's called marriage). I am again reminded that it will take an eternity for finite men to fully know an infinite God. Praise God that eternity is exactly what we have to work with. All in all, I can say with perfect sincerity that from the moment of my conception on, my life has been all grace, I have known nothing else. It was grace which protected me in my unbelief, it was grace which compelled me to believe, and it is grace which drives the belief which will ultimately bring me home.

With Great Expectations,
Michael Spielman (February 2002)