Past Few Years - Part 1 - Starting College

I was raised in a Christian home and my parents are the most faithful and trustworthy people I know. I professed my sins at an early age (7-10?) and I know at that time that I understood the Gospel: that I was a sinner and that only Jesus’ payment on the cross in my place was sufficient to “wash away my sins,” and “make me white as snow,” acceptable to God, and take me to heaven. I remember singing that song with my mom when I was very young. I also remember attempting to witness to one of my Mormon friends when I was in 2^nd or 3^rd grade, and realizing that he just didn’t understand what I was talking about. I remember quoting Romans 6:23 to him: that he would die for his sins and without hope if he didn’t have Christ. I remember feeling genuine sadness that he didn’t seem to understand what I was saying about Jesus. I know I was a Christian at this point and that God had completely changed where I was headed in my life through the love and security of my parents.

But the worldview I developed, almost upon stepping into my dorm room into a new universe was without the security and the easy answers to life’s hardest questions I knew back in my parents’ home. Actually the first encounter I can remember with skepticism (which was what I faced in college) was in high school at a book store with my mom. She was looking for a book in the Christian section, so I browsed with her. I came across a book that suggested something about the question of how we know the Bible is true (I can’t remember exactly what it was). I remember being dumbfounded at the notion of questioning the Bible’s veracity, so I immediately began to grasp at straws as to why I believed it. But I came up with next to nothing. In a conversation with my mom at that bookstore, she came near tears when I bluntly asked her “how DO we know the Bible is God’s word?” I guess the shock of her discovering that I didn’t know combined with my shock at the same was hard to swallow. I remember being terrified inside as to the implications of my inability to answer this question. Was everything I said believed a sham? Was I just adopting my parent’s beliefs? Was the Bible the word of God or just an old book?

Later, in college, I would write an essay titled: “Why Do You Believe the Bible?” I sent it out to almost everyone I had the email address of, which in hindsight probably made me the weirdest person some of these people knew. Some of the email addresses I stole off of another guy’s email list in college. So I didn’t even know a large chunk of the people I was sending this out to, and I even gave credit to him as the one who provided the email addresses. I think I was just starting to really use email to communicate with friends, so I didn’t realize how weird it would be to do this. Plus, my first line in the email was: “DON’T DELETE BEFORE READING ALL OF IT”. As I was informed later by the email list guy, this looked very much like a chain letter, though I had never even heard of such a thing. So basically I was a complete idiot. But I sent it out with pride in what I wrote, hoping that it would mean something to them or make someone think. For the most part, as far as content, it was a good paper and reflected the study and research of the Bible I had done on my own time and found to be compelling. The paper itself, however, was shaky in structure, awkward in phrasing, disjointed, unclear, oversimplified, bigoted, judgmental, and expressed well my inability to coherently write (some may ask what has changed since then). But it was sort of my baby (though only 6 pages long) and reflected the immense amount of change I experienced in the first few semesters of my college experience. I had learned a great deal in the field of apologetics without me even knowing the term. And eventually, I had some college papers under my belt that helped my writing style quite a bit.

How I got to that point was a hard road, and lasted about a year (since I emailed the paper around October 2003 and started college September 2002), which actually isn’t that long but it felt much longer. Much of this time was spent alone, since I had a lot of trouble making friends in college, especially during the first semester where I generally didn’t hang out with anyone. I stayed in on the weekends and tried to find any excuse I could to go back home. My first roommate was a 5^th year senior, and was basically the party animal and social king of the dorm (Walton!). I was also noticeably awkward in almost every interaction with him and everyone else in the dorm. Later in the year though, we were decent friends and got along pretty well. But I owe a lot to the influence that my friends in the Wesley Foundation had on me in shaping my spirituality and grounding me in fellowship and support, even if I had some significant disagreements with some of the teachings of Methodism, what with developing Calvinist tendencies and all (perhaps later on this one). That sort of sounds like developing homosexual tendencies. Ha, funny. Anyway, having the Christian surroundings and environment brought to the fore the importance of knowing what I believed and why, especially being in theological disagreement as I was. It helped me face head-on the doubts and questions I had about scripture and Christianity, and forced me to open up the Bible, read books, listen to teachers, and find answers.

Some of the most compelling of arguments for the Bible’s truth for me were those of a more traditional, evidential approach, a la Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel type thinkers that argue for the evidence of Christianity, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and biblical inerrancy. McDowell’s The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict (that my mom bought me in high school) was an instrumental guide in helping me discover the Bible’s amazing historicity and accuracy, as well as prophetical consistency and fulfillment. For example, one of the strongest points I ever read was concerning a prophecy in the book of Daniel (9:24-26) which predicts the exact time period, maybe even the exact day, of Jesus the Messiah, the King’s arrival into Jerusalem riding on a donkey’s back in 33 A.D. (Zech. 9:9), his subsequent execution, and the destruction of the temple following. (A recap of this is provided by someone here).

Many more things like this contributed to my increase of faith in the scriptures. Another greatly beneficial experience was listening to an open-air preacher named Tom Short speak on the campus square about Jesus and Christianity at Texas A&M (which was quite controversial I might add, but he was simply a good apologetic evangelist). Some trails I followed, however, seemed great on the front end, but ended up being kind of silly and unfounded, such as the Bible code theory.

All in all, this was one of the most important and shaping times in my life, and I can only credit God in doing a great work on my heart and mind in my first couple of years of college. At this point, I still had many, many problems and shortcomings such as arrogance, close-mindedness, and pride; but it also included times of great humbling and learning about the Bible, which I know have been crucial in my understanding of Jesus and his mercy to me as a sinner. I was also still (perhaps even more) confused as to what it actually meant to be a Christian, to repent from sin, and to walk with God daily (I still do; who doesn’t?). I came to realize just how hard this actually was since I was now responsible for myself in a way that you can’t understand when you’re living with your parents.

That is what college was to me: a great awakening. It was coming to understand that I am to be a man now. No more games. I needed to put away my childishness and move on to maturity. As I was to learn more about later, actually being a man of God and loving Christ was much more than I thought I was bargaining for in these first few years. But I’ll save that for later post(s). Peace out.