I don’t want you to have an abstract idea of conversion. Here are some examples of conversion experiences from the Bible and from history, just so you understand that God works in different ways with different people.  The substance stays the same, but the appearances vary.  You will also see that what’s important is not when you were converted as much as that you have confidence that God has saved you.

The Bible

The Apostle John.  When was John, the beloved disciple, converted?  Was it only just in John 20:22 when Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit?  Did John not love or believe in Jesus before that?  Couldn’t it have been back in Matthew 4 when Jesus called John and his brother James from catching fish to catching men?  Or was it even before that when, presumably, the Holy Spirit prepared John’s heart for him to accept Jesus so quickly?  We don’t know.  Was John converted?  Absolutely.  Was he convicted of sin, and demonstrate that by repentance and faith?  Yes.  When did it happen?  We don’t know.

Paul:  What about the Apostle Paul?  Certainly there is no doubt about his conversion experience.  Blinding light, voice from heaven, dramatic and immediate turn around: that’s conversion.  But as we’ve already seen and will see, that’s a powerful testament to God’s love, but it might not always be typical.

Take also Peter: When was Peter converted?  Before or after Jesus called him Satan?  Before or after he denied Jesus three times?  Before or after he fudged on the Gospel with the Judaizers in Galatia, when Paul publicly confronted him?  Was Peter converted?  Absolutely.  When did it happen?  We don’t know.

Summary: here, among three prominent New Testament figures, we see radically different conversion-shapes: John, who might have always believed; Paul, who was dramatically converted; and Peter, who seemed to manifest distinctly non-conversion types of behavior alongside profound statements of belief and love for Jesus.  We see this same pattern continue through Church History.

Church History

Augustine: An immoral, prodigal son, intoxicated with his own mind and his abilities in public speaking, was granted by grace a troubled conscience.  Then, one day as the Lord was convicting him, well, this is what he said.

“I was…weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice of a boy or a girl I know not which–coming from the neighboring house, chanting over and over again, “Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.” Immediately I ceased weeping and began most earnestly to think whether it was usual for children in some kind of game to sing such a song, but I could not remember ever having heard the like. So, damming the torrent of my tears, I got to my feet, for I could not but think that this was a divine command to open the Bible and read the first passage I should light upon…So I quickly returned to the bench where [my friend] was sitting, for there I had put down the [Bible] when I had left there. I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

C. S. Lewis: Lewis had been coming under conviction for some time through the books he’d been reading and in conversation with believing friends.  However, it wasn’t until he and his brother were traveling by motorcycle to Whipsnade zoo that he trusted in Christ: “When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”

My wife made a genuine profession of faith at the age of 3.  Her understanding of the Gospel grew, as did her confidence in her profession of faith, but she only rarely doubted whether she was or was not converted because she’s seen the Lord’s hand in her life and the presence of perseverance in spiritual fruit.

My story: on the other hand, I began making professions of faith at the age of 4 and prayed countless sinner’s prayers over the next decade, but it wasn’t until I was 16 that I began to truly love the things of the Lord.  I honestly don’t know when I was converted only that I am converted.

Summary: from church history, and from my family’s history, we see several more conversion stories: the dramatic conversion of Augustine, the casual seeming conversion of Lewis, the conversion that is before memory of my wife, and my own conversion, which has been lost amidst a sea of doubt and false professions.