When Flannel Board comes to Life

Sunday, January 12, 2014 Posted by Sara

"It wasn’t so long ago that I was mired in that old stagnant life of sin. I let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell me how to live. I filled my lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us." - Ephesians 2:1-3, Italics my emphasis

My journey of knowing Jesus from flannel board character to ferocious lover was a gradual one.

I grew up attending church, but as a young child it was an activity I assumed everyone did. I learned about this guy and his friends who were featured in a gigantic book.

I made lots of crafts with yarn.

I listened to countless stories of people who lived on a flannel board.

This was life with God.

The first a-ha moment I can recall was watching a very passionate Baptist woman explain to me the Easter story in a living room of a house church while my family lived in South America.
She was crying about a man, who until that moment, was a simply the star of flannel boards.
Suddenly Jesus was real. He was worth crying over. So I started talking to Him.

Day by day and year by year I began to learn more about this Jesus - his nearness, his power, his love for me.

My high school and college years were a season of exponential increase in hunger, love, and devotion to God. The more I grew up, the more I learned about Him, the more I wanted to know Him.

I recall one particular evening in college when I was attending a worship night with a Christian group and I stood singing a song to God. I was overwhelmed with this reality that He is real - that He had been with me all these years, even when I didn't know quiet what to make of Him - or how to live for Him. And He had found a way to draw me closer and to show me who He is. I then did something my little Lutheran/Presbyterian upbringing was not prepared for.

I lifted my hands in worship.

And even though it was such a simple thing, in my heart it was so powerful. It was as if that moment I was saying to the Lord, "All these years you've been pursuing me - choosing me - showing me Who you are. Tonight I choose you back. I want to do life with you forever."

"Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah." Ephesians 2:5-6

To the One who keeps me company and invites me into the greatest adventures,
I choose you again today.