Sermon Illustration Tuesday (11.6.18)

In the novel, Horse Heaven by Jane Smiley, Buddy Crawford, a horse trainer, has a “born again experience but things don’t go according to plan. This is his prayer:

“One night, when he was praying his usual prayer, he suddenly got up from his knees and sat down on the bed. He looked out the window, up toward the full moon, in whose region he imagined Jesus to be, and he said, “Okay. Here’s the deal. I thought I was saved. That was what was advertised. I would accept you as my personal savior, and there we were. And, you know, I felt it, too. I felt saved and everything. I was happy.

But I find out all the time that I’ve got to keep getting saved. Am I saved? Am I not saved? What do I do now? Did I do the wrong thing? Should I be remorseful, or just go on and try to do better? Are you talking to me? Are you not talking to me? Am I good? Am I a sinner? Still a sinner? You know what? I’m tired! I’m only fifty-eight years old! My father’s eighty-six, and he’s still alive, and his father died at ninety-three! That’s thirty years of this! I’m exhausted at the thought! I can’t do it!” And he did something only a loser would do, he burst into tears.”

Jane Smiley, Horse Heaven: A Novel (Ballantine Reader’s Circle) Random House Publishing Group.

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