One of the people I asked to review my early draft of Kahle’s Summary of the Bible for the Non-Believer suggested that some readers might be interested in the story of how I came to believe in God. I can’t imagine why because the story is not that unique. However, it is uniquely mine.
I was christened and baptized as an infant and raised in the Episcopal Church because that is how my father was raised. My mother’s family is from Italy, and there the Catholic Church reigns. Something happened that turned them against the Catholic Church either in Italy or early during my grandparents’ lives here in America. From the little I have heard about the subject, it may have been as simple as resentment that the priest expected to be honored and fed the best portion when he visited even though everyone was struggling to get by during the depression. It may have been something deeper that I have never been told.
I was raised to know the Bible stories and to say prayers before bed. But though I may have believed in God as a concept, I had no personal relationship with God. God was more like some distant relative I didn’t see very often. However, there is one event that stands out in my mind to this day. One night when I was a teenager, I had a vivid dream. In this dream the devil (or one of his agents) appeared to me and offered me the thing I wanted most in the world, all I needed to give him was my soul. I remember telling Satan very calmly, “But my soul is not mine to give to you.” Is it possible that somehow I picked up enough knowledge of God in my early years to understand that God owned me even though I didn’t have a personal relationship with God yet? Or could it be possible that God already knew that when faced with the choice I would choose him? In Jeremiah 1:5 the Lord tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”
I grew up during the turbulent 60’s. I was self-absorbed and thought I knew everything, but I was ignorant about life in general — pretty much sounds like the stereotypical teenager, don’t you think! On one wilderness hiking trip I remember stripping naked, washing, and then praying to the earth and sun attempting to tap into the “Mother Earth” culture so popular at the time. My words felt hollow and meaningless, and I felt nothing in my heart in response. I was searching for meaning and finding nothing but the motto “If it feels good, do it!” I joined the Army and managed to survive a lot of stupid stuff that young men do — I was, after all, young and invincible! I was once knocked out and an Army friend of mine was stabbed while we were at a bar in the “shady” part of town. Another time I watched one guy with a knife chase another around a car trying to stab him outside another bar. Small things like that. I remember I once wove a crown of thorns and left it where I knew a certain Christian would find it, something I realize now was a mean-spirited thing to do and probably qualifies as religious persecution today. Although I wasn’t a “bad” person, I often wasn’t really a “nice” person.
After I finished my enlistment in the Army, I returned home for long enough to drive my dad a little nuts because he had gotten used to not having me around. That summer I decided to drive around the country and see the sights. I made it as far as Mount Shasta where I had the bright inspiration to climb it-alone, without any proper snow climbing equipment and without anyone knowing the time I left, the route I was taking — “This way looks good!” – or when I would return. That is a risky combination that I don’t recommend for anyone. On the way up I suffered from altitude sickness and hypothermia. I shivered and threw up all night long. It was a very long night, but I did get up and make it to the summit the next morning. On the way down I tried a “shortcut” and ended up sliding down an ice chute. I should have ended up in a broken pile a thousand or more feet below. Shasta is a big mountain, and I am pretty sure no one would have ever found me – at least not alive. Youth and “luck” carried me through.
Coming off the mountain I decided “I’m moving back to Hawaii.” — Yes, I do believe I had a mountain top experience. I found a construction surveying job there and met a man who convinced me I should go to his church because “it’s a great place to meet young, trusting women!” He was the kind of guy who loved the chase and to seduce women even though he was married to a young woman in that church. It didn’t matter if they were married either; he loved the conquest. I’ve never been very good at “dating” and was seeking a way to meet the kind of women I was interested in meeting, so I went. It is amazing to me in retrospect that God would use a person like that to get me into church at the very time in life when God knew I was ready for him to touch me.
At church there was a wonderful Christ filled couple, Jim and Bonnie Melton, who ran a young adults group at a church in Kailua. I realize now that they were praying very hard for my salvation. Somehow I got a copy of one of Hal Lindsey’s books (It may have been “The Late Great Planet Earth”), and things just started falling into place for me. I still remember sitting in the back of a pickup on a sunny Hawaiian day when I proclaimed that I did believe in Jesus, confessed my sins, ask for forgiveness, and became “born again.” Later I was baptized by immersion in the church I attended.
I was active in that church and met a wonderful woman. We married, and we had two children together after we returned to the mainland. We visited churches pretty regularly at first looking for a good fit. I remember one incident involving a particular church in a college town. The day we attended there were lots of people sitting in the pews madly scribbling notes about the sermon. I don’t remember the sermon, but I do remember at one point the preacher said something about a well-known labor leader of the time who “went to hell when he died, and he deserves to be there!” My spirit was grieved that anyone who actually believed in hell could celebrate that anyone was there. I took my wife’s hand, and we got up and left as the “preacher” commented, “Well I can see I touched a nerve in someone here.” I didn’t feel much love coming out of that church, and I can honestly say I have personally experienced judgment and condemnation from within the “church.” Shortly after that we got lazy and quit looking for a church.
I know I haven’t always lived the life God wanted me to live. I still struggle with relinquishing control to him. I have failed in my marriage; I have failed to be the spiritual leader in my family I was supposed to be, and there have been consequences. But I can say that I truly have been blessed. I know in my heart that Jesus is God, and I have faith that his death is sufficient to redeem even me from all my failures and sins. After my wife left me I had a lot of anger. I walked a lot, cussed a lot, and I prayed to God. I ended up asking God for two things for the remainder of my life. The first was wisdom, and the second was that in some way he would use my life to glorify his name.
I am not eager to die, but neither am I afraid of dying, especially when I compare it to growing older and slowly fading away like I see so often. I do look forward to meeting the child we lost early during a pregnancy. Even though we never discussed it much, I have never doubted that there is a fifth member of my family, and that this child is waiting to greet me!
But for now I am content to wait for wisdom and look for opportunities to serve the everlasting God who loved me so much he died a horrible death. He shed his blood to pay the price of my sin, redeemed me from my sinful nature and gave me the ability to live a life satisfying to myself and pleasing to him. I now have hope! I also look forward to kneeling at the feet of the almighty God and praising him for his power and his holiness, and thanking him for his mercy!
Faith for some people appears to be easy, but it is a continuous struggle for me. I have to choose every day to believe in God. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I have to make that choice many times during the day because of what I observe around me. I choose to believe.
The Lord is my strength and my shield
my heart trusts in him, and I am helped.
(Psalm 28:7)