I Chose to Believe God!
My name is Anna Rogers, and this is my story.
I was born and raised in a Christian home, attending church all my life. My family attended Lehigh Valley Baptist Church up until we moved to Tennessee, where we attended Faith Baptist Church in Crossville. I was what people would consider a “good girl.” I was never very outwardly rebellious and I kept all the rules.
One night, when I was about 9 years old, as my dad was reading to my sister and me, my sister suddenly burst into tears. When we asked what was wrong, she said, “I’m so afraid for Anna. She’s not saved, and she’ll go to hell when the rapture comes.” I started crying because I was afraid to go to hell. I prayed to God, asking Him to save me, but there was no true repentance, only fear. I changed for a day or two, but sin started to creep back into my life. I started to doubt my salvation, and I would pray that prayer that so many of us have prayed: “God, if I am not saved, please save me.”
On the outside, I was your typical Christian kid. I quoted Bible verses and participated in every church activity, but there was sin deep in my heart that I did not want to give up. I knew I needed God’s help, but I didn’t know how to get it.
"On the outside, I was your typical Christian kid."
One year in our church, we held revival meetings. I don’t remember what the preacher preached about, but I felt very convicted. I went up to the altar, sobbing. My pastor talked to me about getting saved, showing me verses like John 3:16. I made yet another profession, but there was no repentance then, either. Still, I stuck to that profession, and I was able to fool everyone around me, but I could not fool God. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked:” (Galatians 6:7).
In 2013, when I was 11 years old, we moved back to Pennsylvania and started attending Lehigh Valley Baptist Church again. My whole family joined the church in one night, and I was baptized here. But there was sin in my life that I couldn’t ignore, and I finally realized that I had never truly been saved. I prayed again and again, asking God to save me, but I was not willing to give up my sin. I grew frustrated with God, thinking that I was just the one person that He wouldn’t save. I decided that if He didn’t want to save me, I didn’t want to be saved. But I knew the consequences for sin. I knew that if I died in my sin, I would go straight to hell, but it didn’t seem fair to me. After all, God was the One refusing to save ME, right? I struggled with these thoughts for several years.
“But he giveth more grace…” (James 4:6).
In the summer of 2017, I attended our church’s annual summer camp. On Thursday night, the last night we were there, Pastor Josh Fryman preached a message. I don’t even remember what it was about, but I felt so convicted that I went up to the altar and cried out to God, asking Him to save me. I got up to go back to my seat, expecting to feel relieved and peaceful, but I felt nothing. I got angry at God, wondering how He could reject me again, even when I did everything I was supposed to do. What more could He possibly want from me? Again, I came to the conclusion that if He didn’t want to save me, I didn’t want to be saved. On the way back from the service, my sister was walking next to me, but I was too proud to ask for help and open up to her. She told me later that as she walked next to me, she wanted so badly to help, but I refused to ask. She said it reminded her of how God must have felt walking beside me all the way, loving me more than she ever could, having all the answers to my questions, and wanting to save me, but I wouldn’t let go of my pride and ask Him.
There were still so many questions swirling around in my mind, like, “Won’t God ruin my life if I give it to Him?”, “Why does He hate me and refuse to save me?”, and “What am I doing wrong?”
That Saturday, after we returned home from camp, my sisters and I were talking about our experiences that week. My sister mentioned something about unbelief being a sin and that you needed to resist it as you would any other sin. So when it came to salvation, you needed to trust that God would do what He said He would do.
"He said that He would save me if I asked Him. All I had to do was ask and trust that He would take care of it."
I had always heard that you needed to repent and believe in order to be saved. I understood the need for repentance; there was no denying that I was a sinner, but the “believe” part had never really clicked with me. But all of a sudden, it made sense. I had trusted my feelings to tell me whether or not I had really gotten saved instead of trusting God like I was supposed to. The Bible says in Acts 16:31 to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou SHALT be saved.” It didn’t matter what my feelings told me. It didn’t matter what I felt like. It only mattered that God said that He would do something, and He WOULD do it. He said that He would save me if I asked Him. All I had to do was ask and trust that He would take care of it.
That day, June 24th, 2017, I went somewhere I could be alone, and I told God exactly what I had struggled with. I told Him my sins, and I recognized that I was a filthy sinner before Him. I could not do anything that would be good enough for Heaven, and I needed to rely on His Word. I mirrored the sentiment of the father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9 - “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” There were no tears, no feelings of exorbitant joy, only such a sweet peace and quiet in my soul as I had never experienced before, “…for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day” (II Timothy 1:12). I chose to believe God despite any doubts or bad feelings, and He saved me, just as He had promised.
Since that time, I have continually experienced God’s grace and mercy in my life. I’ve learned that sin and temptation don’t end when you accept Christ; there is a constant battle. I didn’t instantly know everything about God after being saved, and all my misconceptions about Him did not magically clear up, but God doesn’t just leave me where I am. He continually guides me and reveals Who He truly is. Through everything, God has shown me that He is greater than my sin and my guilt, and that He has something He wants me to do for Him in this life.