Having a testimony

"Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul" (Psalm 66:16).

We have all been asked now and then to give our "testimony," by which is usually meant our conversion story of 30 years ago. It gets a little old. It somehow reminds me of Jimmy Durante singing, "Oh, I'll never forget the day I read a book. . . ." Yup, I'll never forget the day I trusted God.

My guess is that the Psalmist here is not dusting off his anecdote about coming forward at a summer youth group retreat in the 1960s. He has fresh evidence of God's greatness, and he is bursting to tell it. We are given hints in the Psalm that a breakthrough, or some display of God's power, came through a season of intense soul sifting, in which the man rode that tiger for all he was worth:

"For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance" (vvs. 10-12).

It's not only the suffering but the holding on through the suffering that creates a testimony. Any fool can suffer.

In my opinion, Sunday preaching would be much improved if the exposition of the Word of God were illustrated by testimonies from the preacher's life. The most encouraging preaching I hear is of that variety. Jesus told stories. Stories are powerful. I don't think we were ever meant to keep recycling only the stories of faithfulness of Abraham, Moses, and Daniel.

To hear commentaries by Andrée Seu, click here.