It was June of 1953, I was eleven years old, one of five boys who had taken catechism classes after school one day a week all winter and were now ready to become full members of the Anglican Church by confirmation. We came early to church to meet with the bishop. He described how the service would proceed, then said: “When I was your age I thought that after the bishop laid his hands on my head and prayed for me I would not be able to sin anymore. After we got home from church, I ran out behind the barn to see if I could still say the bad words I had learned. They came out of my mouth just as easily as they had before. When I put my hands on your head and pray for you this morning that won’t change anything inside of you. If you are going to have victory over sin, you need something I can’t give you. You will need a changed heart.”

That was good advice, but how could I get a changed heart? I spent the next seventeen years trying to get it by my own efforts. Finally I understood that this was not a do-it-yourself project. The power to change would have to come from outside of myself. I needed Jesus.

O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps, Jermiah 10:23.