During the spring quarter of my sophomore year at Auburn, I was ready to just walk away from religion. Just slowly fade from view, let the faith slide and move on in some direction. Preparing to head home for the first time in 2 years, I was dreading the entire process. My parents are awesome, but as Christian leaders, there would be a lot of expectations on me. And everyone at home knew me from my past as the “good Christian boy.” Yet, I had changed so much in the two years at college. To some degree, I didn’t want anyone to ever think of me as they did in the past. So, outwardly I had made some cosmetic changes (most notable was the length of my hair), but inwardly I was a mess.
Fortunately, as I thought about life after God, I knew enough that I really couldn’t just stop being a Christian. I knew too much. I mean, I COULD say it, but I knew enough to question the simplicity of merely quitting God. I had seen moments of mystery, times that some would call miracles. I knew the faith of my parents seemed real to them, though I had questions about that. Mostly, I knew that I had experienced something, perhaps SomeOne, at various times over the previous 20 years.
There had been moments while on youth mission trips when things would happen that seemed to imply God really was there. Even during my first year of college, I could see some things that could be interpreted as evidence in God’s favor. Of course, all of those things could have been just as easily emotional or psychological mind-games that I was playing subconsciously.
It was that summer, however, that I first stumbled upon C.S. Lewis and Josh McDowell. Both men had started their lives as atheists, but then later switched gears to become Christians. After that, both men held successful careers as an Apologist for God, someone who defended the faith of Christianity.
To me, their stories were somewhat similar—they did not just start going to some church and voila, a Christian. Rather, both took deep intellectual process to investigate what the Christian faith truly was. McDowell in particular had determined to do a historical and intellectual research on the faith. Actually, he had hoped to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Christianity was intellectually bankrupt.
That’s right—he wanted to prove that Christianity was, at best, a tired old religion of man-made rules, or at worst, that it was the most terrible lie invented. I had heard him speak during my sophomore year and was intrigued. It was then that I purchased his book Evidence that Demands a Verdict. While I was coming at it from the opposite direction (currently a Christian but ready to walk away), if either of these men had any information, I was ready to hear.
At the same time that I was reading and investigating, I was saying a simple prayer. “God, if you are really up there and really care, show up and show me.” That prayer was predicated on the idea that if God really was present, as the Bible implies, that He would respond in some way to the open desire of someone.
He did.
There wasn’t a lightening bolt as in Martin Luther’s case. Neither was there some beam of light like happened to Saul in the first century while on the road to the city of Damascus. Yet, over the next months, through a series of events, moments and people, I felt like my eyes were opened for the first time.
There was still more work to be done. Major questions in my life and questions about theology had to be answered. Yet, if I had started out “disappointed by religion,” I could now join Lewis in being surprised by joy.