Now you asked me to tell you just how I got saved,
What caused me to change the way I behaved.
But first I must tell you that God is no fool.
He knows when you’re living by his holy rule.

I was raised up in church and there dedicated,
And when I got sick, with prayer medicated.
My parents believed in the rule we all know,
“Raise up a child in the way he should go”.

I won Sunday School prizes from nursery to teen,
In church Christmas pageants I was in every scene.
And certainly I knew each time that I sinned,
For I’d read the Bible from the start to the end.

Then I went off to school and I sowed my wild oats,
I was beginning to leave the sheep for the goats.
“You are so far from home,” said the Old Evil Foe,
“You can do what you want and no one will know.”

And then I got married and kids came along,
I knew that my life was so terribly wrong.
Church membership was all that I needed,
To lead a good life, with the devil defeated.

I wanted to pick a church best for me,
Where the people important for business would be.
My life was a lie, what more could I say,
A Christian at church, a sinner at play.

When I went to church and sat in my pew,
I thought them all fooled, if they only knew.
Oh nothing I did was so terribly wrong,
I could pray a good prayer and I knew every song.

The way that I lived couldn’t hurt anyone,
They weren’t all that bad, the things that I’d done.
For I loved my brother, that’s easy to do.
But the ugly and smelly, must I love them too?

And I always gave when the offering came ’round.
They collected in bags, so coins made no sound.
How much I loved God you could see from afar.
I had stickers with sayings all over my car.

I sat up in front, in my coat and my tie,
Knowing full well, that my life was a lie.
Yes I could play church with the best of the best
And then came my chance to put it to test.

They asked me to run in the deacons’ election,
I knew that my ruse had reached its perfection.
But then came the question that caused me to doubt,
This simple young child, had he found me out?

From that very moment, right there in my pew,
My whole life was changed, I started anew.
The question so innocent gave me such a jog
“Sir — when the rapture takes place, WILL YOU FEED MY DOG?”

One evening at our Wednesday night Bible study we were discussing how a little child might say something in complete innocence that can totally change how one looks at things.

Afterwards we visited a friend who keeps a week’s supply of food and water out for her cat in the event that the rapture would leave it helpless to provide for itself. I recalled that I had the same concern for my caged menagerie when I was a boy.

I went home that night and, contrary to popular opinion, with no one particular in mind, I wrote The Deacon’s Story. The moral of the story is so obvious that I won’t insult your intelligence by pointing it out.