My Testimony
Saved early in life
I do not have a dramatic conversion story; rather, my life has been very ordinary, and most likely my experiences are very common among Christians who grew up in a Christian home. It was a life of whole-hearted commitment, but half-hearted follow-through. It is a story of ups and downs: long stretches of genuinely seeking God, followed by long stretches of trying to fit God into my box so I could be successful by my definition. Please read on, because at the end is a surprising conclusion.
I came to put my faith in Christ at a very early age. I knew only three things: I was bad; Jesus was good; If I put my faith in him, he would make me good. My theology didn’t have much depth, but what did you expect from a five-year-old child? My testimony shows that God does not leave the faintest cry from the weakest heart unanswered. He purchased the right to be generous with his grace through his Son’s blood shed on the cross! The rest of my life is a testament to the verse:
“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1:6 NIV)
I grew up in a Christian home, with three older sisters, where both parents were committed followers of Jesus Christ. They modeled a Godly life for my sisters and me, kept us in church, and set a few rules around our house that I wished weren’t there at the time. Today, I am grateful for those rules, but at the time, I didn’t like them. They kept me from being like everybody else.
Growing up was an annual cycle: revival at church, a week or two of being a “good little Christian,” then repeating the process the following summer. It wasn’t until my junior year of high school that I began to follow Christ more consistently. Was I saved during those times? Absolutely! I wasn’t sure at the time, but I was. God had his hand on me and led me through what we, in the Protestant church, call ‘Sanctification’. Let me explain it this way.
We can only surrender to Christ what we possess. At five, I didn’t have the physical or emotional maturity I would at 11. Each year brought new strengths, new abilities, and new emotions. At 14, I didn’t have the self-awareness I would at 20. So, from age 5 to 21, I made three more professions of faith and was baptized each time.
However, Dad wanted to send me to a mission-oriented Bible school in Greenville, SC. I resisted because I wanted a degree in mechanical engineering, but Dad was determined to send me where he wanted. In retrospect, I’m sure God was moving in those decisions. Over the years, I have thanked God so many times for that decision, though at the time, I resisted with all my will and ended up in dark spiritual depression.
At that school, Evangelical Institute of Greenville (EIG), I first understood the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This was a radical change in my understanding. Up to this time, I had some fuzzy idea that Jesus saved me so I could go to heaven and live a life of pleasure doing whatever I could come up with for eternity. I am so grateful that neither our doctrine nor our understanding needs to be perfect for us to receive God’s grace.
As I neared the end of EIG’s two-year program, I began searching for what God would want me to do. I thought I wanted to be a preacher or evangelist. I knew I didn’t have the gifts to be a pastor, but maybe I could be an evangelist. The director of EIG took one look at me and said, “You are not an evangelist, Dixon. You won’t survive. Tell you what, I’ll join you in prayer that God will lead you where he wants you.”
I agreed and started praying that God would show me where he wanted me and give me the grace to obey. That was the week I realized my life was not on a traditional trajectory. The Friday after I spoke with the school’s director, Dad called and asked if I would help him with the restaurant business. That was the one thing I DID NOT want to do. But because of my prayer, because I hadn’t ruled it out, and because I had asked God for the grace to do whatever he wanted, even though I didn’t want to, I said yes. Suddenly, my hesitation and dislike of the restaurant business changed to anticipation. The instant I said yes, God changed my heart.
I spent 26 years in the restaurant business. At first, it was a time of personal growth. Within 3 years, I was running the entire organization. Within 4 years, I met my incredible wife. After seven years, Dad financed me, and I bought the business from him. Somewhere between the eighth and ninth year, I got too busy; my heart grew cold toward the Lord, and even though I went through the motions of Bible reading and church attendance, my heart wasn’t in it. I experienced a spiritual drought as I began to pursue anything and everything but God. For a number of years, I wanted to keep up appearances, but I wasn’t straddling the fence. Heck no! I made a gate through it and indulged in the passions I had an appetite for, Monday through Saturday.
It has been said that God will meet you where you are; God accepts you just as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you as you are! That has been the story of my life. He began a good work in me and has continued to work on me throughout my entire life. That is another way of saying, “Where sin abounded, grace abounded more.” By my late 30s, the two-faced life I was living was becoming wearisome; I longed for the fellowship I had experienced with God in my earlier years, and the Holy Spirit once again began to work renewal and revival in my life. Still, some of the habits and appetites I had developed didn’t leave quite so easily, but one thing did return: my genuine desire to be in the Word.
My 40s, 50s, and early 60s were good years. God was present; I grew in obedience and faithfulness, even though I often stumbled and fell. My conduct wounded many people, mainly through anger and damaging words. But I justified it because I wasn’t using curse words. (Well, for the most part I wasn’t.) In traffic, I would call other drivers stupid fools. My wife said I needed to stop cursing people, but I denied that I was. To me, cursing was limited to words Christians aren’t supposed to say. To her, cursing was any derogatory or hurtful comment we would make to or about others. She was right; I was wrong!
Yet God kept working in my life, despite all my warts, failures, and sins. That is the beautiful thing about God’s grace. Even though we are massive, colossal failures, he doesn’t give up, and he never stops working. After 26 years in the restaurant business, I taught myself how to write software code and began looking for opportunities. I wanted to change careers, but faced a major obstacle. Companies don’t hire a middle-aged man who taught himself to write software code.
I had closed my last restaurant six months before; I had turned down a significant offer for a process I had developed because the investors wanted to use it in a way I couldn’t support; even though my wife was working full time at a church, the salary was quite meager, and with a house full of kids, things were getting desperate. The week after Christmas, one morning I dropped to my knees in the front room of my house and prayed: “God, if you don’t come through, I’m finished.” Within 48 hours, I received a job offer, started work, and spent the next 16 years developing software. (In other places, I state I spent 21 years in software development. I did; the first five were while I ran the restaurants.) Most of the time, it wasn’t that dramatic, but we have repeatedly experienced God’s faithfulness over the years.
At age 63, I retired from programming. Several big things happened that summer: my father died in August, I retired in September, and because my oldest son wouldn’t accept me sitting around the house doing nothing, he badgered me until I started rehabbing houses to have something to do.
I spent seven years rehabbing houses. Within a year, it became far more than I had ever dreamed or hoped for. It turned into a company where I would hire men out of prison or drug rehab, train them, and pay them fair wages to rehab houses. My mission statement was: “Hire guys out of prison and drug rehab to share Jesus with them.” Did everything go smoothly? Nope, we had some challenges. But every workday morning, I started with a devotional on what God had spoken to my heart that morning. It was awesome.
I had to stop that after seven years due to health issues, but now I’ve started writing about the things my heart is passionate about, which is loving God with all your heart and sharing Jesus.
Conclusion
How could God use a man whose life has been a story of ups and downs, revival followed by backsliding, fiery devotion followed by a love grown cold? Yet he does, not because of my value but because of his grace.
God gives to one person an experience of conviction, salvation, and radical commitment that never looks back. They use their story, and many are convicted and come to faith in Christ through their testimony. But without a big story, I often felt like I had little value to bring. Then one day I realized I bring the same personal value as those with a dynamic story: nothing but obedience.
“I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.” (1 Corinthians 3:6)
Even the person whose life is a radical testimony of transforming grace is completely dependent on God for the value their life brings to the hearers. The same applies to those of us whose lives have been ordinary. I desire to see the lost come to faith in Christ, which I believe is normal for any follower of Jesus, but God has used me more in discipling and encouraging believers to pursue and love God.
I have come to realize that the love of Christ, working in us, advances the kingdom of God. Not a big story, but a genuine love for God and for others.
