When and how did you come to know God in a personal way?
It happened in the summer of '65 between my Sophomore and Junior years at Arizona State University while studying for an engineering degree. Wanting to earn money that summer, I decided to check out one of those outlandish job offers that claimed I could earn $1000 a month. Now back in the 60's, $1000 a month would buy what it takes $4000 to $5000 now, so it did sound like an outlandish claim. As it turned out, it was a sales job selling "hope chest" items manufactured by the West Bend company, primarily stainless steel cookware and kitchen items. It was that job which God would use to bring me face to face with my depravity.
The products really interested me, and something deep inside me said "go for it." My dad said I was not cut out to be a salesman, but then my high school counselor said I might not make it through college either, but there I was, with above average grades and working three part-time jobs. I took the job, and before I completed training on how to present the merchandise, I had made my first sale, setting a new record in that local sales territory. I came home that night after my dad had gone to bed, so to make my point, I laid the signed sales contract at his place at the breakfast table, and placed the down payment I had collected in cash on top of the contract. It ended my dad's telling me I was not "cut out" for something, and the beginning of my reliance on self-pride as a god.
I did earn the $1000 per month the first two months and quickly bought into the humanistic teaching that whatever the mind of man can conceive, man can achieve. My pride was centered in the belief that I was somehow superior to the masses, more intelligent, wiser (I did not do the stupid things others did), and destined to greater things. Toward the end of that summer, I tried to convince one of my closest friends, Charlie Faust, to join me in the business so that he could earn money for his upcoming wedding. As it turned out, he was the only close friend I had who was a "born again" Christian. I thought I was a Christian because I, and some fellow mavericks, frequently attended a church and didn't get into trouble -- well, at least the police never caught us. But this guy was different. After describing the sales presentation and the profit I was earning, he quite simply objected to the deceit in my presentation. At that point I said something that shook the very foundation of my self pride, "But everyone is doing it."
For me to make that comment was an admission that I was a member of the lowly majority -- that not only could I not live up to God's standard, I could not even live up to my own. It shook me enough for me to come up with my own sales pitch that did not include any deceit. My sales supervisors were aghast and non-supportive of my desire to discard their very effective pitch. I told them the product did not need to be sold that way and that I was just the person to lead them to a more noble sales pitch. So off I went, using my own ethical and honest presentation.
My sales earnings changed from over $1000 a month to zero. I was stunned. I was further stunned when my girlfriend of two years dumped me -- not for another guy -- just lost interest. My world was crumbling. For two years I had been preparing for a career for which I had been steadily losing interest. For two years I had built my hopes that earning that kind of money would bring fulfillment, only to find that it made me more conscious of how empty I was. For two years I had been trusting in a relationship to bring me happiness, only to find myself alone and yearning for someone in whose eyes I would be most important. I was feeling very alone, very small, and powerless to hold on to everything for which I had worked so hard. What if I am not so great after all? It was a scary question.
Scared and broken but too stubborn to quit. I resolved to redouble my efforts to prove I was right and in the process met Joan Palace who invited me to a thing called CO-UNIBUS where I was told I could meet many new sales prospects. It was an odd acronym standing for COllege, UNIversity, and BUSiness youth. I had no idea that it was a Campus Crusade for Christ outreach program aimed at folks just like me, but then I had never heard of Campus Crusade. Before going for the first time, I scoped out the house where the group met and "Wow!" it was one nice house. I could tell that because it had double front doors and only rich people could afford double doors! It was the kind of place I had dreamed I would someday own.
That Sunday night, I knocked on the doors and was greeted by the owners of the house, Marion and Al Wetzel. As I entered I saw a large group of my aged youth sitting on a sunken living room floor singing their hearts out as a young woman, Rosie McDowell, banged out tunes on a piano and a man tall enough to be a basketball player stood up and led the group (Don Orvis would play a major part in my salvation and subsequent growth the next two years). I felt out of place as I worked my way around numerous bodies and sat down at the back of the room next to the fire place.
After the singing ended, the evening was spent listening to one student after another stand up and tell how excited he or she was about knowing and serving Christ and how close their relationship with God had become that summer at a place called Arrowhead Springs, California. Now I really felt out of place. I had heard about these fanatical groups and how they get so emotional that they throw hymnals through church windows and tear their clothes while frantically dancing in the aisles. And now, here I was, trapped at the back of a large living room filled with them! I got out that night by sneaking through the kitchen, being sure to load up on the cookies I found there, but not before someone invited me back telling me that yet another conference group would be there next Sunday night. It was then that I realized how I had failed. I had gone there with the intent of getting names of sales prospects and I had not one new name in my book. So, I resolved to hit them up the next week and told the person I would be back.
That week I was puzzled. How could anybody be so excited about Jesus. I had been going to church for some months by then, even been assigned a lead position in the church's college group. I could not think of one time when I was ever excited about Jesus, and come to think of it, I knew of no one else in that church who impressed me as being excited about Him either. Something was definitely different about that group, and they really seemed to be quite normal in all other respects. But why the difference? I had grown up in a non-Christian family that never went to church, except for the few occasions my parents dropped me off at Vacation Bible School and my dad gave me a dime to put in the offering plate before they would drive off and do who knows what. Church had never been an important or regular part of my life, and certainly no part of my parents' lives or our home life.
To get answers, I went back. The faces were different, but the music was just as lively and the testimonies just as enthusiastic. I was more relaxed, and temporarily laid aside my goal of getting names so that I could study this most unusual group. At the end, I started to exit via the kitchen and the cookie tray when some guy grabbed my shirt and asked if I had heard the Four Spiritual Laws. Having no idea what he was talking about, I chose to lie and said "yes" rather than give him an opportunity to preach. When he heard me answer "yes," he became very excited and asked me what I thought of them. Carrying on the deception I said, "I think everybody should hear them." "Praise the Lord!" he shouted and still latched to my shirt said "come with me!" In no time at all, I found myself sitting on the edge of a king sized bed in a room filled with guys including the tall guy, Don Orvis. In the middle of the bed sat a bewildered young man who was the focus of the whole assembly. I was introduced as a "new brother" and left pretty much alone. Don preceded to read something to him about Christ called the Four Spiritual Laws, but my focus was on the closed bedroom door -- like a trapped animal waiting to bolt -- which I did as soon as it was opened. Joan Palace who had invited me, was present that night and handed some literature to me as I made my escape to the front door.
After that night, I stayed to myself for awhile, depressed about how my life was going, my failure to obtain new prospects' names, the loss of my friends, and rapidly losing interest in money, engineering, and most everything else. Granted I was only beginning to sample the life style for which I thought college was preparing me, but even what I had experienced left me unsatisfied. There was something wrong with this picture. I did not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that quantity was not going to make up for the absence of quality. In other words, becoming more successful, earning more money, was not going to change the fact that these were, by themselves, unfulfilling. In desperation, I decided to clean my bedroom and came across the literature given to me by Joan. I had no interest in reading it, but as I threw it in the trash, I noticed that there was some handwriting on the back. "You fool," I thought to myself, "she has written you a love letter and you just sat on it for two weeks without reading it!" Indeed it was a love letter, but not about her love.
It started out: "Law one: God loves you, and has a wonderful plan for your life." I had heard that God loves me, and thought that I knew all that I cared to know on that subject. But a plan for my life, that puzzled me. There were some Bible verses included and I vaguely remember reading them. Then it went on to say that "Law two: Man is sinful and separated from God, and therefore we cannot know and experience His love and plan." Boy I had heard about this sin stuff a lot. They talked about it in the church I had been attending, but I did not really think it applied all that much to me because I was okay -- certainly better than a lot of others -- despite the fact that I was still deeply troubled about my saying "but everyone is doing it." There was a "third law" which said that Jesus is the only way we can bridge the chasm, created by sin, between us and God's love and plan. Again, I had heard this in church, sang about it, and otherwise figured that I knew all that I needed to know on that subject. If you had given me a test, I could have easily answered that Jesus was the Son of God, and was a very unique person in that He had been raised from the dead. I "believed" all that the same way I believed that George Washington was our first president. So what? But "law four" caught my attention. It said that we must individually accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior in order to have our sin forgiven and experience His love and plan through a personal relationship with God. I am sure I must have heard this before but now I was actually "hearing" it for the first time. (I would find out years later that I was only able to hear it at that time because God had enabled me to hear it.), This concept of a personal relationship with Christ was foreign to me until I got a glimpse of it in the testimonies of those students who seemed so excited at the CO-UNIBUS meetings. But I was spiritually dead at that time so I could only see them as different but lacked understanding as to how or why. So, I did nothing but continue to muse about the state of my life, but at least I did not throw out her literature -- a move I now recognize as the intervention of God.
My parents fought on a regular basis and I had found release over the years by going on long solitary bicycle rides, day or night, for miles on end. One such August night found me out in the desert on a lonely road doing a lot of soul searching. I was coming to be really fed up with myself, my lack of character and integrity, how poorly I was running my life, and disillusioned with all the hype that happiness was to be found somewhere other than where I was, or worse yet, that all I needed to do was "keep hanging in there." Lies, lies, and more lies. I had formerly believed that I could accomplish anything to which I put my mind, but now I knew that I could not. I had been deceived by the humanistic philosophy upon which all my academic, career, and relationship goals were based.
I felt overwhelmed by thoughts of my self-centeredness, inadequacies, fears, and the hollowness of my accomplishments. Was this as good as it gets? Was what those CO-UNIBUS students had genuine or more deception? For the first time in my life I had an overpowering urge to talk with God, and to deal honestly with the issue of my own depravity. I had always known that I was a "sinner" because I knew that I was not yet perfect. But that thought had never bothered me apart from the frustration that I had not yet realized my full potential. It had been all about me, and God was never in the picture.
But that night was different. Somehow the "sin" issue took on a new significance. I began to realize that it was the major issue in my life. It was this sin thing that accounted for all my misery. I stopped along a canal between two large cottonwood trees and began to weep. I remember saying out loud, "God, I know you are busy, but I need to talk to you." At that time, all I could say to Him was that I had made a mess of my life, that if He could do a better job of it He could have it, take control of it, do anything He wanted with it, but that He wasn't getting very much. (Little did I know at the time that indeed He had been busy -- busy preparing me for that very moment by breathing life into my dead spirit. And it was that new life that was craving intimacy with Him that night, and giving me understanding of how sin was the symptom of my spiritual deadness toward God. Little did I know then that He had chosen me before the creation of the world to give me life and that He had already provided a place for me to spend eternity with Him in paradise. Little did I know that He desired my coming to Him infinitely more than I ever had desired to be with Him.)
Whoa! No sooner had I said that prayer than I felt total peace and my sadness and guilt lift! What was going on here? I felt fully energized, excited, just like those CO-UNIBUS folks! I jumped on my bicycle and began racing toward home. I had barely rode 500 feet when a second revelation hit me. I no longer hated or despised people. They were no longer the lowly, stupid, filthy masses! No, I actually thought I might now have empathy for them! How could that be? What was behind all these sudden changes? It surely wasn't anything I was doing that was causing them.
The changes continued, even to this date. I found that literature I almost threw away and read it cover to cover. It not only answered some of my hard questions, but it whetted my appetite for more. I found a new interest in school in a new field of study, psychology. I had a burning desire to understand the human mind, its workings, and a passion for telling others of God's love and plan, and to help them discern truth from deception. Over night I developed an insatiable appetite for His written word. I had to go out and buy, not one, but several different translations of the Bible. Within the first year, I read the New Testament, cover to cover, in at least four translations. I began memorizing entire books in it at a time. I could not get enough of His word. I thought about it day and night. Everything else seemed to become an obstacle to reading it. I gave up dating and became heavily involved in Campus Crusade for Christ's outreach programs both at ASU and a new local two-year college, Mesa Community College.
In an attempt to earn a Ph.D. in psychology, I enrolled in classes at ASU only to discover they had no answers but only questions. One of the last classes I took before dropping out was on the development of human personality. The instructor opened the first class by asking us if anyone knew what personality was. No one ventured to answer. The instructor said that he too did not know what it was so instead we would spend the semester talking about his pet peeves. It was obvious that I did not belong there, and that any degree I earned with those folks would be just another deception -- a sham document. Instead, in 1970, I married the woman with whom I had been working with in Campus Crusade's outreach ministries. Donna and I have been together ever since.
A few months after our wedding, a world famous Christian illusionist, Andre' Kole, asked us to join his World of Illusion magic show as full-time staff on Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC). We eagerly did that for nearly five years during which we had a small part in God's work of reclaiming thousands more, just as he had done for me. During those years, we were required each summer to attend the Institute of Biblical Studies (IBS), a sort of short term seminary program. Every summer my study of God's word was accelerated beyond my wildest dreams. I was able to rub shoulders with, and sit at the feet of, some of Christendom's best teachers. It was a highlight in my life. I served as stage assistant and technician until two years after our son was born at which time I resigned from that worldwide traveling ministry to devote myself to the roles of husband and father.
Through the years, I have continued to get to know this God who chose me for salvation before there was even an earth on which I could be born. And the more I allow Him to have His way with me, adopt His perspective, the more I come to know Him personally and watch as He shows off His character and power in my life. The appetite to serve Him continues to grow, my desire to know His word continues, and after all these years of immersing myself in Him, more and more is coming together to increase my understanding of His laws, working, and character. Many of the material things I craved before knowing Him, I now have, and can fully enjoy because I no longer "need" them for my self esteem. The graduate education I gave up having years earlier was later obtained from a private college which far surpassed my earlier experience.
It has been over 37 years since I trusted Jesus Christ with my life -- trusted Him with both my current and eternal welfare. His patience is unfathomable. If it were up to me, I would have destroyed those like me long ago. His love allows me to experience the consequences of my choices, and yet He sets limits on those consequences so that I am not destroyed by them. When I drift away from Him during times of ease and abundance, he allows times of testing to bring me back to His side where I find my greatest rest and happiness. When I lose myself in Him, and desire connection with Him more than the riches this world has to offer, He reveals more of Himself and His ways -- a discovery more rewarding than anything I could ever earn. He is bringing my desires and appetites into alignment with His so that I can pursue what I want while fully living within His will. He instructs me in the ways of wisdom when I am teachable, warns me of dangers I might otherwise ignore, and protects me even while I sleep. He provides for me the things I need to survive and often does so abundantly. He has provided for my retirement -- an eternity with Him free of this sin nature that I have grown to hate. He even allows me to send riches there for myself ahead of my coming -- riches which He protects from theft, inflation, and decay, riches which gain interest until I come. He leads me to develop masculine manhood by cleansing me of the feminized, childish, and distorted Hollywood characteristics which I possessed when I came to Him. He never lies to me, never abandons me, always loves me unconditionally, and is eager for me to agree with Him on my sin so that He can forgive me. He is the perfect father.
Beyond a doubt, the deepest change I continue to experience came as a result of my understanding that I had nothing to do with God choosing me for eternal life with Him. I was in no way superior to the next guy in any matter of appearance, personality, intelligence, or character. I was definitely not searching for God. If anything, I was hoping He would just bless whatever I wanted to have or do and make no claim on my life -- require nothing of me. I was no more "ready" to accept Him than the next guy, no more intelligent, holy, or moral. I did not receive Him as a result of any action on my part, I received Him when He took the initiative and invaded my lifeless spirit. Why He chose me and not the next guy I haven't the foggiest, but the fact that He did, the fact that I would otherwise have experienced an eternity in hell, has struck the deadliest blow to my pride, and resulted in the birth of a humble and grateful heart.
Just as He allows me to have a small part in His work in the lives of others, there were, and continues to be, many people whom God sends to have a hand in His work of molding me into the person He has destined me to be. My foregoing testimony includes the names of those whom I am aware He employed to prepare me for that critical turning point. There have been many since then who have helped me grow straight and true to God's word. I do not know the names of all of them, but I do remember some, especially those who impacted my growth during the first ten years, whom I now wish to honor: Pastor Vincent Strigas (deceased), Wayne Williams (adult Sunday School teacher), Elmer Lappen (Campus Crusade's ASU director, deceased), Hal Lindsay (CCC staff, author and t.v. show host), Josh McDowell (CCC staff, author, and t.v. show host), Manfred Gutsky (pastor and IBS instructor, deceased), Andre' Kole (illusionist), Pastor E.V. Hill (L.A. inner city pastor, deceased), Mrs. Ruth Graham (Billy Graham's wife), Howard Hendricks (Dallas Theological Seminary instructor), Pam Princell (CCC staff who brought the gospel to my wife), and Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, deceased July 2003). I am deeply grateful for them all and many more like them.