Like most people, I grew up going to church. I was an acolyte, took confirmation classes and attended youth group activities. I was a Methodist! Truth was, God was about as real to me as the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or Santa Clause.
I went through high school and college not giving God much thought. Late in my college career, I was exposed to some deep, complex ideas about the universe – graduate students in physics and mathematics professors “expanded” my mind with a bunch of high-minded “how we got here” stuff. Recurring universe theories, string theory and multiple universes. [Present Day Note: I do believe there are other dimensions, in which spirits – the Heavenly hosts – can phase in and out of, at will. Jesus did it post resurection. Angels and demons are recorded in the bible as if appearing from “nowhere”.] Mankind has always created ideas to try and answer how, why and where we exist – many pointing to the BIG BANG theory as the “so-called” beginning. But, the Big Bang theory violates basic laws of angular momentum [rotation], expansion, directional and gravitational physics. Plus, I always had these nagging questions: Where did it all [matter] come from? How did it get here? Where is “here,” [space] exactly? Why does, where does and when [time] does, anything exist? Especially us!
I got married in 1982. I finished engineering school at Clemson, and moved to NYC. Things were perfect. Or so it seemed. When I pondered the First Cause for existance, neither the Bible, nor scientific theory, made any sense to me. I really had no idea how we got here or why, but up until a certain day, I really didn’t care – but I’ll never forget that certain day. You might not either, after reading this! I was sitting on the toilet in our apartment contemplating my life. I had just finished college where I played Division 1 football at Clemson. I was married to a top model, lived on Park Avenue South in NYC, and had a job with an international engineering firm that was remibursing me for graduate school. Perfect, right? But something went really, really wrong while sitting on that toilet, contemplating my life. Here’s a snapshot of my brain that day:
I was thinking all this great stuff, but then I started thinking: I’m a speck of a person, sitting on a toilet, in a high-rise apartment, on an island with 2 million people (Manhattan), in a city of over 7 million people, on a speck of a planet with billions of people, in a speck of a solar system, among countless solar systems, in a speck of a galaxy in a vast, seemingly never-ending universe full of countless galaxies, wondering how or why anything even existed, where it existed, whether it was all an accident, or if it even mattered? Why was I here!
It literally felt like a bomb exploded in my head (my personal BIG BANG!) I remember frantically thinking – this was my literal thought – “I just blew my mind while sitting on a toilet in New York City!” My heart was pounding, I began to sweat and I felt everything closing in like a tunnel effect. All I wanted to do was run. That would have been a problem, though, considering my current activity. Where would I run? To someone with the answers, I desperately thought. Who was that? First thing that popped into my head? A preacher! I had visions of running into a church and asking a preacher why we existed, but he’d just say, “God did it.” My wife always said that. Who made God? Is there really a God? God certainly didn’t seem to be in the bathroom with me. I thought no one on earth could give me the answers. I wondered, did other people freak-out about this stuff, or was I loosing my mind? I didn’t realize it at the time, but I just had my first fear-induced panic attack. And this fear was my “ultimate fear.” The fear of the unknown – not knowing why, or how, or where we – or anything for that matter – even existed! This “ultimate fear” – these “panic attacks” – plagued me for almost 20 years. Not in a debilatating way. Just me and my wife knew. And I’m sure a few friends and aquaintances may have wondered if something was wrong with me. 🙂 You know who you are.
Many times after that fateful day, looking for answers, I tried reading the bible, but every time I opened it, I couldn’t get past Genesis and the creation story. Then the fantastical stories like Noah’s flood, and the parting of the Red Sea. In Leviticus, the detailed descriptions of blood sacrifices. It all seemed mythical or primeval to me. The bottom line, I really didn’t believe in the God of the Bible, because I couldn’t believe those stories. If I couldn’t see God, He wasn’t real. If it didn’t line up with science [so-called], it was science-fiction. I knew the universe began with a big bang, billions of years ago. I knew we evolved from single-cell amoebas – and fish and monkeys. I knew these things, because that’s what I was taught. So I trudged through life with a big secret – FEAR of the unknown!
By my mid-thirties, I finally convinced myself there had to be a God. I became an agnostic-deist – if that’s a thing. Misdirected and incomplete knowledge and a belief in something larger that myself. Not through Divine revelation. In fact, I was proud of creating a “position” on religion. I took a completely self-created, intellectual leap and acknowledged that there MUST be a God. Reductive reasoning proves that. The First Cause. The Christian God. The Muslim God. The Buddhist way or Hindu Gods. God! There was no other explanation to existence. So I finally proclaimed: God did it! And, He must have used the Big Bang, and evolution to do it. But . . . God did it! Where else could matter, energy, time and space come from? We can’t explain it. So it must be God. Whew! I found a way to cope.
Those pesky little panic attacks still hovered around, but now I could push back – God did it! Man, I was on cruise control. Proud of my self-conceived truth. I was finally comfortable in my skin again. I used to go into bars and “prove” God existed. This took me into my early forties.
Then one warm summer night in July of 2001, something really crazy happened. We lived on the Isle of Palms, a barrier Island off the coast of the Charleston, SC area. My wife and kids were away at a week-long church youth camp in Michigan for the second year in a row. I had my boat gassed up and planned a week-long party on the water during the day, and in the bars at night. Little did I know, Pam (my wife,) Julian and Carra (my then pre-teen kids,) were born-again Christians. I had no idea what that meant. Later I was told they had dozens of born-again believers praying for my “salvation.” Praying for God to open the “eyes of my heart” to His Truth. Had I known that then, I would have been offended, big-time.
I’m not sure which Saturday night, but it was late. I was well into my “fun as a bachelor” week. I was at the computer. I don’t even know how, but I suddenly found myself on a JESUS website. [Website URL redacted, because it no longer represents the Gospel, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.] Being on that website back then freaked me out a bit. It was not a very impressive site but it had a short and simple message. I read God’s plan for mankind – the good news – the “GOSPEL”, as if for the first time, after having heard it many dozens of times before. But this time, something was different. It was as if God Himself was telling His message to me, touching my very soul. It cut like a knife, and I immediately recognized that I was living a self-gratifying, sinful life under a false sense of comfort, calling myself a Christian, but having no real faith because I didn’t really believe. Somehow, I found myself on the floor. I was in tears, and asked Jesus Christ to come into my heart, forgive me for my sins, and save me, and help me understand the truth. I was crying out in search of TRUTH. I’m not sure how much time went by, but before I got up I knew something had changed. Big time. That background noise of fear and doubt just melted away. I felt a huge weight lift off of me. I believed all of it – the entire Bible! I got up, sat back in the chair and started reading again. Then all these doubts came rushing in … What about evolution? What about dinosaurs? What about the Bible saying it only took 6 days, some 6 thousand years ago, to make the earth? What about SCIENCE? How could what I read in the Bible mean anything if I couldn’t reconcile what I thought I knew of science and creation. Just as these thoughts were racing through my mind, I saw the links that ulitmately sealed the deal. The following excerpt is from that site:
Questions? Flood, Evolution, ‘Millions of Years’, Abortion & more.
FOR NON-CHRISTIANS
Don’t believe in a false god. Don’t believe that there is NO god. Reject the degrading ‘theory of evolution’ ($250,000 prize if anyone can prove it). ‘Wet dirt’ NEVER turned into a flamingo by accident! It is a cruel, God rejecting, easily disproved lie. God designed you. Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. He rose from the grave and now lives forever. Seek His forgiveness. Seek eternal life. Humbly seek Him through His Word, the Bible.
God has delivered us from the power of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. Colossians 1:13-17
Many children of God will worship and reign with Jesus Christ in His new heaven and new earth for all eternity. Will you be there?
If your answer is “No” or “I don’t know” and you have read this entire page, my friend, God is knocking. Give it up. Let go. He’ll catch you. Seek Him for real, not through some false TV preacher begging for money. Seek Him through His Word, the Bible. Listen to His Word. Talk to Him. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins; then serve Him with your life.
The site linked to several reputable creation-science websites. ICR, Answers in Genesis, Kent Hovind, to name a few. I sat there, clicking the links, reading everything I could about Evolution vs. Creation Science. Wham! Pow! Just Wow! I had never been so excited in my life. I was hanging on every word as if my life depended on it. In fact, not only my life, but my very eternal soul. Every question not only had answers, it had answers that made sense. The Bible had the answers to my questions, and verifiable science backed it up. It gave me the answer to my ultimate fear – why did we exist? I had an overwhelming sense of joy and peace wash over me. All I could do was sit there and repeat “It’s all true. It’s all true!” I realized the answer was no different than what my wife told me decades earlier – God did it! But there was one BIG difference. I KNEW IT! I believed it with every fiber of my being. There IS a God! There IS a Heaven! He revealed Himself to me! To ME! I actually couldn’t believe that I believed. It was the most important day of my life. I didn’t even know it then, but I just began a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the very Creator of the universe, as a born-again Christian!
It was so amazing how my life began to change. I had purpose. I couldn’t study the Bible enough. I WANTED to go to church. I had a hunger and drive to know God’s Truth. My soul was on fire for God. Every new question had almost immediate, and detailed answers. Every new revelation brought new questions. The depth of knowledge and wisdom from God and the mysteries of life were all in the Bible. I began to see how you could study for a lifetime, and just get a mere glimpse of the majesty, power and goodness of God and the magnitude of His eternal, never-ending love. And . . . of his Righteous, Holy Wrath – a subject too little talked about in churches today. A wrath that was on me already for having “not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” – Jesus Christ. But now, I was redeemed. I was “saved.” I was on the inside of God’s Love looking out. Wow! Incredible. It’s ALL TRUE! THIS IS THE BORN-AGAIN EXPERIENCE! I was actually a Born-Again, Bible-Believing Christian. A Jesus Freak. Ha! NEVER would I have believed it, if someone told me that I would become one of those whackos! Read what Jesus said, as recorded in the Book of John, Chapter 3:
1There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
2The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.
3Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
4Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?
5Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
(and later, Jesus continues . . .)
14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
15That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
God revealed Himself to me through His Gospel and by erasing my doubts through Creation Science. He knew my barriers to belief and He took them away. God revealed Himself to me just two short months before 9-11 which was the beginning of many financial and health issues for my young family. But our faith grew. We trusted God. We learned about “end times” prophesy. We didn’t even know it was called Eschatology back then. We fell in love with Israel, and God’s love for His chosen people. We learned how Christian’s should bless and love His people. Less than two years after I got saved, we were blessed with another baby boy – Gabriel. My wife was 42, and I was 43. This beautiful child was diagnosed with the most severe congenital heart defect with a 50-50 survival rate. And God did miracle after miracle. He gave us peace and joy through a most difficult time. I had a young man in my church with few assets himself write us a check for a thousand dollars – a gift from God he called it – to show that by trusting in God, He will provide. How humbling was that?
So here I was – a new Christian; 9-11 hit; we experienced financial hardship; I had a baby with a severe heart defect facing numerous surgeries and challenges, eventually capping out on his insurance limit. Whew! Only God could get someone through all that. And He did. He picked His perfect time to reveal Himself. He planted seeds for years. He loved me even when I didn’t know Him. Jesus died for me, and for you, and anyone whom will choose to accept His free gift, knowing in advance that we would be sinners, yet He still revealed His Glory and Truth.
Where are we now? Our faith is strong. Our youngest son, Gabe left us for Heaven on August 21, 2011 – my wife’s 51st birthday. We miss him more than words can describe, but we are doing OK, because we know Gabe is with Jesus, and we will see him again. Read Gabe’s Story, and see the blessing that his life brought to all who knew him.
Our next step? Here we are Lord, send us!
