Malachi’s Salvation

What a special Christmas surprise we had on Sunday, December 23rd. Malachi accepted Christ as his Savior during the evening services at Hillside!

For months and weeks, Malachi has been asking us questions on salvation. They were more confirmation questions. He already knew, but he wanted to make sure. We weren’t going to push anything though. Since he is five, we were afraid of him making a ‘false profession’. Not really meaning it, etc.

However, it is something we’ve been praying about. It’s actually been a heavy burden for Mysia. She believed that he was old enough to understand, and couldn’t grasp that he wasn’t ready. She had asked, and asked him about salvation, running him through everything. She’s been a great encouragement, but was very concerned. She often shared that she was afraid something would happen, and “what if he’s at that age where it’s too late?” We’d then have to assure her (and ourselves) that it was all in God’s time and we can pray and wait.

Mysia sure did her part! Malachi was on her “prayer list”, along with several of her friends from school. Lydia and I also discussed his occurring questioning of salvation. We had often asked him if he wanted to pray for forgiveness and ask Jesus into his life. He would pause with thought, and reply with “not yet”.

Since it’s Christmas-time, there is a lot of talk about Jesus’ birth. We made it a point to explain that the ‘birth’ was only the first part of the story, and the reason for His coming was become the ultimate ‘sacrifice’ for us because of our sin. It would lead to great conversations with both Mysia and Malachi. Especially the thought that Jesus’ life was His gift to us.

Well, on Sunday morning, Lydia and I found out one of Malachi’s friends from church (his age) had gotten saved over the past week. What a blessing, and our Sunday School class rejoiced with the news. It also encouraged us to pray for those, like Malachi, who have shown interest, but haven’t made that move just yet. We talked about the subject matter, and prayed.

We didn’t mention anything to Malachi that afternoon. Of course, we spent a time of Christmas celebration with Lydia’s family. Talk about Christmas always centers around Christ.

Soon, we were back at church for evening services. We sat as a family in the pew, listening to Pastor’s sermon. Malachi was being pretty well-behaved. After the sermon, during the invitation, he grabbed my hand a pulled. I bent down, and he asked to go forward and pray by including, “I want to get saved...”

I then lead him to the the front, we knelt down at the altar, and I ran through salvation with him several times. He prayed, with full knowledge of what he was saying, and I then asked him a few more times what had just happened and what he had just done. You see, I wanted to be sure that he just didn’t go forward without meaning it. He was positive, and toward the end of my questioning, a little annoyed that I’d was going over it again and again. “Yes, dad... I know...”

As you might guess, there was a lot of jubilation over the news, and we are very happy. We tried to call and text every family member. If you hadn’t heard until this post, I’m sorry, but now you know!

As for Mysia, I asked her how excited she must be, her prayer for Malachi finally answered. She looked back to me, with a concerned voice... “that’s just one, I still have several friends!” What a daughter!

~Matt