New Ager

Anne’s phone rang. It was her niece who had just attended a spiritual emphasis weekend for youth. She was weeping with joy over what she had just experienced in her life. While at the meeting, she had experienced a conversion.

Elated with her encounter with Christ, she thought she would call her auntie and appeal to her to turn her life to Christ. Anne became enraged. She was into the New Age movement, and was quite steeped in it. Incensed that her closest niece had been brainwashed, she tried to dissuade her, but to no avail.

After failing to persuade her to reconsider, she hung up the phone. Anne had grown up as a Christian but had turned away from Christianity feeling frustrated about its control over her life.

There were things she wanted to do but couldn’t because of the perceived pressures from others. Never having experienced conversion herself, or the power of Christ in her life, she went seeking for something else. So she became deeply entrenched in the New Age movement and became an ardent advocate of it. The appeals of her concerned niece troubled her, and they kept ringing in her ears.

When she got home, she was still distraught. In her anger she tried to shake the conviction she felt from her niece’s words, which angered her more. She could not sleep. Desiring to distract herself from her thoughts, she decided to find something to read.

Turning to her night stand next to her bed, she opened the drawer and checked to see what she had to read. To her surprise, there was a book there entitled Steps to Christ. She tried to recall where this thing came from. How did it get in her drawer?

She decided to open it and begin reading. As she got into the book, the conviction intensified. She wanted to lay the book aside but felt an overwhelming drive to continue.

As she read of Christ and his matchless love, she began to weep. By the time morning dawned, Anne could resist no longer. Yielding to her niece’s appeals, Ann slipped over the edge of her bed and decided to fight no more—she knelt and invited the Lord into her life. What a peace came over her—a peace she had never previously experienced.

Rejoicing over her conversion, she went to her library and throughout her home, gathered everything she had from the New Age, and cast it in the garbage. That same morning she had an appointment with some of her practitioner friends. They were supposed to have a session in her home. When they arrived at her door and knocked, she opened it, and they were taken aback.

Something was different about her. She invited them to enter for she had something wonderful to share with them. Feeling tremendously uncomfortable with her presence, they refused. Then sensing that they would not accept her invitation, she told them about her newfound faith in Jesus Christ.

They could not retreat fast enough. They left fearing fleeing from a power they had never encountered, and one that generated fear in them.