I find it interesting that in Rick Bragg’s autobiography “All Over But the Shoutin’”, he said that as a boy in church he waited and wanted for the feeling to come over him that he should go up to the altar to be blessed, to accept Jesus into his heart and his life. And he sat and sat and sat in that pew, and no special feeling came over him. He felt that it must be like being possessed, that he would be lifted up out of his seat and find himself walking up to the front of the church to be received into the arms of Jesus. He wanted that feeling, and it never came. So he never got up.

It isn’t a magical thing.
It isn’t a passive thing.

It is a human, on his or her own, of their free will, choosing to hand their lives over to Jesus, to follow along with him in God’s ways.

It isn’t something that happens to you.
It is something you do.

That turning becomes returning – daily, weekly, monthly. Every day we recommit, we choose.

He eventually left, feeling left out, feeling so low. He never understood that just wanting to go up was the call. God needs us to come to God on our own. It has to be conscious. God chooses us, but we have to choose God too.