Unless you grow up believing, from the earliest age you can remember. Never having had any doubts about the diety of Christ, your sinful nature, and your need for His sacrifice as payment for your sins, leaves you without a palpable conversion experience from non-believer to believer.
You would think such a case of naturally coming to Jesus would be the ideal, yet the lack of a dramatic "transformation" can have its drawbacks, regarding assurance of being "born again". I speak from experience.
I made a profession of faith at the age of nine but there was no great dramatic moment. I believed the message of Jesus as presented by the evangelist and asked Jesus to come into my heart.
For the next 25 or so years I went on my way and lived life. Did not go to any church for reasons of physical and mental health issues, which would be difficult to explain. Suffice it to say that I have had just enough energy to survive, never thrive. And that meant going to work to earn a way to pay for the place I slept in the rest of the time. Yep, have pretty much slept my way thru life.
I grew up in an abusive home with parents who had their own issues and took them out on us physically and emotionally. No coping skills whatsoever. And that is what made me want Jesus, I believe. I understood even at that young age, He was it...I just did not understand how he was it.
So fast forward to the age of 32 and going thru the most stressful time in my life: emotionally, personally, financially, employment-related, you name it. The stuff was hitting the fan hard in every area of my life.
I collapsed....spiritually. That is what it took for God to focus my attention solely on Him. And that is where the dramatic I-finally-understand-and-get-it-moment-occurred. And looking back on my life I could see He had been engineering the circumstances all along to bring me to this point.
Some never need this much trauma to hear His voice but I did. And I have been following ever since. Yes, I have sinned, yes I have been benched and sat on the sidelines (where I am right now). But He is still with me and still working out my future....of that there is no doubt.
I probably have not used the correct terms that others can understand, but what I have been trying to say is that all it takes is Him. It does not take attending a mass or taking a Eucharist or even going to any church at all. It does not take water baptism or going door to door evangelizing. All those things are secondary to the saving belief in Jesus. He does all the work of salvation and He has worked in my life just as He did in Paul’s.
A sudden and very dramatic intervention whereby He was front and center in my life....a three-year period of nothing but immersion in Scripture and learning from it...followed by an even more dramatic spiritual victory that left no one watching in doubt as to Who had brought the victory...followed by a serious physical and emotional collapse....followed by a ten+-year period of healing of mind and body. And now I am just waiting for the next phase.
My journey has indeed been very dramatic and traumatic to say the least, but I believe that part is over and look forward to whatever is ahead. It may not be the ideal conversion and journey but it is what happened with me. And I believe it is what leads me away from religious busyness because I have seen that one does not have to go that route in order to know God and have a saving faith in His Son.
I got it, no doubt! :)