The following is a wonderful witness from a reader of the website who asked to remain anonymous. Thank you, sir.

ONE MAN’S WALK TO EMMAUS

I have been a Christian all of my life. I have always believed that Christ is my Savior, that He is the Son of God, that He died on the Cross for my sins, and that He was resurrected and ascended to heaven and sits at the right hand of God.

This is not to say that I have been a good Christian all of my life. After I turned 18, I stopped going to church and engaged in a sinful lifestyle. My beliefs hadn’t changed, but I did not put my beliefs into practice. About 8 years ago, I started going to church again, but I was a “Sunday Christian”. I went to church on Sunday, but did not change much else in my life.

Then, about six years ago I was arrested and after a year, convicted of a felony. I was fortunate in that my sentence was only 1 year of home confinement with 30 months of probation. It was at this time I realized how far I had wandered from the path that our Lord wants us to walk.

The day after I was convicted, my wife left me and I was alone. That night, I fell to my knees and prayed to the Lord to re-enter my life and to guide me back to the path that He wanted me to walk. This began a journey that has lasted almost 5 years and ended this past weekend. Yes, my journey reached an end because I took the final steps on the path the Lord set for me 5 years ago.

This past weekend, I took the first steps on a new journey with my Lord and Savior. I went to a retreat called The Walk to Emmaus. I am not able to describe with words a lot of what happened and what I felt. During this Walk to Emmaus, I found that it wasn’t that I did not have God’s Grace in my life or that he did not forgive me for my sins, but that due to the guilt and shame I felt for my past sins, I had not accepted God’s Grace in my life. My Lord had been talking to me all these years, telling me to let go of the guilt, but I didn’t listen.

During this weekend, I learned how to listen to the Lord. I finally let go of the guilt I had hung onto for so many years and finally accepted God’s Grace in my life. The change that came over me was evident to everyone on the walk. I had several of the leaders of the walk come up to me and say that I had a glow about me and commented that I had a “Mountain Top Experience”. What they were referring to was a similarity to the transfiguration of our Lord:

¹After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. ²There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.
Matthew 17:1-2

Later that day, I reaffirmed two covenants that I had made with the Lord in the previous 5 years and made a new covenant with the Him as well. I hold all of these covenants close to my heart and, as I promised to the Lord, to do my best to keep them for the rest of my life here on earth.

What I wish to share with all of you, is that it is not that God does not give His Love and Grace freely, but that we must learn to let go of our sins, our guilt and our shame and accept the Lord’s Grace and Love in our lives. From personal experience, I know how hard that can be to do.

For many years, I kept asking the Lord to take the guilt from me. I prayed for many months for Him to show me the path He wanted me take. At times I despaired as I didn’t receive an answer to my prayer. I felt my life had stalled and I didn’t feel that I was making any progress. But I did not waiver in my faith, nor did I stop praying. I have heard many times that God doesn’t answer prayer to suit our timelines, but answers them at the appropriate time. This is what happened to me.

I went to my pastor to discuss some of my problems and to let him know about my sinful past and how almost all of my “friends” had abandoned me. My pastor then told me about the Walk to Emmaus and that he would have another member of the church get in touch with me.

I heard from this gentleman about a week later, we met and he gave me a short description about the walk. There was a small fee and I had to have a sponsor. Without any hesitation, he and his share group not only offered to sponsor me, but to pay the fees for attending. I met with this group once for an hour. They didn’t know me or my past. But as true Christians, took up the burden of getting me into and to the Walk to Emmaus.

Thus I took the first steps of my new journey with Christ. The love of these men, my brothers in Christ, was and still is overwhelming to me. I received the same acceptance and love during the walk. I came out in many ways a new person. As we were told at the end of the weekend, the world hasn’t changed, we have. The problems we faced before the walk would still be there after the walk. But because I was able to leave my guilt, shame and sins at the foot of the Cross, I am a changed person. I now walk closer to the Lord.

Please don’t get me wrong, I still have many changes to make in my life. The journey will still be a difficult one and I have much learning to do. But now, instead of being a faithful follower, I have become a disciple of the Lord and have rededicated my life to him.

As I said earlier, I have always believed, but I chose paths to walk that were not in concert with what the Lord wanted. After all this time, the Lord has placed me on the path He wants me to walk.

I now walk with a much lighter step and a glad heart. Thanks to the love I was shown by my brothers in Christ from Emmaus, I have accepted God’s Grace and even though the path I walk will have many unknowns, I know that I am on the path God has chosen for me for the rest of my life.

May you all know and accept God’s Grace in your life and know the Love and Joy of the Lord as I now do