|PIC1|Well-Being Australia chairman Mark Tronson, a Baptist minister of 31 years, suggests that this will inevitably be very revealing, in that the secret workings of his heart will be shared with the reader, and whether these were positive or negative emotions.
"While studying Church History, I always thought that it would have been interesting to have had some way of seeing inside the heads and hearts of innumerable people throughout the ages when they had seminal 'moments of decision'," says M V Tronson who won the Church History prize while at theological college.
First, he ponders upon war history moments, and ponders the fascination of Napoleon's entry into Moscow. What would have gone through the mind of the first modern European conqueror of that city, as he triumphantly gazed upon its streets?
Second, he considers sporting records, and wonders what went through John Bannister's mind when he saw the official time and recognised that he was the first man in history to break the four-minute barrier for the mile athletic race.
Third, he looks at paradigm shifts in modern business and manufacturing in our industrialised society, and wonders about Henry Ford and that moment in time that he realised the fulfillment of his marketing vision of a multi-produced motor vehicle (T Model Ford) that most people could afford.
Also, M V Tronson says, there are many other 'moments' in fiction, but which reflect situations in real life and are repeated in the millions of books about romance where we are told in intimate detail of the heart which has influenced generation upon generation.
In our own lives, too, we have 'moments' where we need to choose one fork in the road ahead, and make a decision that will affect the rest of our lives: decisions about where to live, whether to buy or rent, whether to apply for promotion (or a new job), how to raise the new baby just delivered to our arms, what type of schooling for the kids, how to apportion the family budget and all those decisions we make every day.
Moreover he says, it is described in the New Testament that when a person makes a decision to seek forgiveness for their sin of the Lord Jesus for his death on the Cross there comes a new world view which changes the very purpose of life.
"And we know Jesus' moment on that Cross when he called as he died, 'It is finished' fulfilling those many Old Testament prophecies," M V Tronson noted. "It is incomprehensible to us to try to imagine 'what that moment was like', but it is part of our quest as Christians to do so."
In his own ministry, M V Tronson says, some of his most rewarding moments involved his negotiations with professional sports at the time they decided to formally adopt a chaplain. The result was another moment, he says, which was awe inspiring in that he recognised the Lord had over-seen his prayer beyond human imagination.
Moments such as these have been very sweet to Mark Tronson, who has made some important decisions about his own life's direction in order to be in a position to witness these events.
He is a former train-driver; not handsome nor perfectly manicured nor elegantly attired. To become a Baptist minister he had to earn his academic stripes as a mature-aged student. He says that his own heart's secret is to still think and speak as though he is on the Footplate, to connect with the common people, when he has to make momentous decisions in his professional capacity.
"As Christians, we have made one important choice in our lives; we have chosen to follow Christ in a personal way. Christians can probably remember the feeling in our hearts, we remember 'what it was like' for us at that exact time that we made that decision," Mark Tronson muses.
The secret feeling in the hearts of many Christians was explained well by former Rugby League star, Ian Barkley, in an article in 1985 written by Sydney sports journalist Roy Masters: "Having Christ in your life is like trying to describe to someone the smile on the Mona Lisa."