I longed to be happy. I wanted to be one of the
happiest people in the entire world. I also
desired meaning in life. I was looking for answers to the questions:
"Who am I?"
"Why am I in the world ?"
"Where am I going?"
More than that, I also longed to be free. I wanted
to be one of the free st people in the whole
world. Freedom to me was not simply doing what
you want to do -- anyone can do that. Freedom,
for me, meant having the power to do what you
know you ought to do. Most people know what
they ought to do but don't have the power to do
it. So I started looking for answers.
Where can one find positive change?
It seemed that almost everyone was into some
sort of religion, so I did the obvious thing and
went to church. I must have hit the wrong
church, though, because it only made me feel
worse. I went to church morning, noon and night,
but it didn't help. I'm very practical, and when
something doesn't work, I chuck it. So, I gave up
religion.
I began to wonder if prestige was the answer.
Being a leader, accepting some cause, giving
yourself to it, and being popular might do it, I
thought. At the university I attended, the student
leaders held the purse strings and threw their
weight around. So I ran for fresh man class
president and got elected. It was great having
everyone know me, making the decisions, and
spending the university's money to get speakers I
wanted. It was great, but it wore off like
everything else I had tried. I would wake up
Monday morning (usually with a headache
because of the night before) and my attitude
was, "Well, here goes another five days." I
endured Monday through Friday. Happiness
revolved around three nights a week -- Friday,
Saturday and Sunday. Then the vicious cycle
began all over again.
Seeking life change, positive change
I suspect that few people in the universities and
colleges of this country were more sincere about
trying to find meaning, truth, and purpose in life
than I was.
During that time I noticed a small group of
people -- eight students and two faculty
members. There was something different about
their lives. They seemed to know why they
believed what they believed. They also seemed to
know where they were going.
The people I began to notice didn't just talk
about love -- they got involved. They seemed to
be riding above the circumstances of university
life. While everyone else seemed under the pile,
they appeared to have a content, peaceful state
about them that wasn't driven by circumstances.
They appeared to possess an inner, constant
source of joy. They were disgustingly happy. They
had something I didn't have.
Like the average student, when
somebody had something I
didn't have, I wanted it. So, I
decided to make friends with
these intriguing people. Two
weeks after that decision we
were all sitting around a table
in the student union -- six
students and two faculty
members. The conversation
started to get around to God.
Asking about life change, positive change
They were bothering me, so finally I looked over
at one of the students, a good-looking woman (I
used to think all Christians were ugly); and I
leaned back in my chair (I didn't want the others
to think I was interested) and I said, "Tell me,
what changed your lives? Why are your lives so
different from the others on campus?"
That young woman must have had a lot of
conviction. She looked me straight in the eye and
said two words I never thought I'd hear as part
of a solution in a university: "Jesus Christ."
I said, "Oh, for God's sake, don't give me that
garbage. I'm fed up with religion. I'm fed up with
the church. I'm fed up with the Bible. Don't give
me that garbage about religion."
She shot back, "Hey, I didn't say religion, I said
Jesus Christ." She pointed out something I'd
never known before: Christianity is not a religion.
Religion is when human beings try to work their
way to God through good works; Christianity is
God coming to men and women through Jesus
Christ to offer a relationship with himself.
There are probably more people in universities
with misconceptions about Christianity than
anywhere else in the world. Some time ago I met
a teaching assistant who remarked in a graduate
seminar that "anyone who walks into a church
becomes a Christian." I replied, "Does walking
into a garage make you a car?" I was told that a
Christian is somebody who genuinely believes in
Christ.
As I considered Christianity, my new friends
challenged me intellectually to examine Jesus'
life. I found out that Buddha, Mohammed and
Confuses never claimed to be God, but Jesus
did. My friends asked me to look over the
evidence for Jesus' deity. They were convinced
that Jesus was God in human form who died on
the cross for the sins of mankind, that he was
buried, that he arose three days later, and that
he could change a person's life today.
I thought this was a farce. In fact, I thought most
Christians were walking idiots. I'd met some. I
used to wait for a Christian to speak up in the
classroom so I could tear him or her up one side
and down the other, and beat the professor to
the punch. I imagined that if a Christian had a
brain cell it would die of loneliness. I didn't know
any better.
But these people challenged me over and over.
Finally, I accepted their challenge. I did it out of
pride to refute them, thinking there were no
facts. I assumed there wasn't any evidence a
person could evaluate.
After many months of study,
my mind came to the
conclusion that Jesus Christ
must have been who he
claimed to be. That presented
quite a problem. My mind told
me all this was true but my will
was pulling me in another
direction.
I discovered that becoming a Christian was
rather ego-shattering. Jesus Christ made a direct
challenge to my will to trust him. Let me
paraphrase him. "Look! I have been standing at
the door and I am constantly knocking. If anyone
hears me calling him and opens the door, I will
come in" (Revelation 3:20). I didn't care if Christ
did walk on water or turn water into wine, I
didn't want any party-poop er around. I couldn't
think of a faster way to ruin a good time. So here
my mind was telling me Christianity was true and
my will was running away.
More aware that I hate my life
Whenever I was around those enthusiastic
Christians, the conflict would begin. If you've
ever been around happy people when you're
miserable, you understand how they can bug
you. They would be so happy and I would be so
miserable that I'd literally get up and run right
out of the student union. It came to the point
where I'd go to bed at ten at night, and I
wouldn't get to sleep until four in the morning. I
knew I had to get it off my mind before I went
out of my mind! Finally my head and my heart
connected on December 19, 1959, at 8:30 pm.
during my second year at the university -- I
became a Christian.
That night I prayed four things to establish a
relationship with Jesus Christ which has since
transformed my life. First, I said, "Lord Jesus,
thank you for dying on the cross for me." Second,
I said, "I confess those things in my life that
aren't pleasing to you and ask you to forgive me
and cleanse me." Third, I said, "Right now, in the
best way I know how, I open the door of my
heart and life and trust you as my Saviour and
Lord. Take control of my life. Change me from
the inside out. Make me the type of person you
created me to be." The last thing I prayed was,
"Thank you for coming into my life by faith." It
was a faith based not upon ignorance but upon
the evidence of history and God's Word.
I'm sure you've heard various religious people
talking about their personal bolt-of-lightning
experience. Well, after I prayed, nothing
happened. I mean nothing. And I still didn't
sprout wings. In fact, after I made that decision, I
felt worse. I literally felt I was going to vomit. Oh,
no, I thought, what did you get sucked into now?
I really felt I'd gone off the deep end (and I'm
sure some people think I did!).
God and life change, positive change
But in six months to a year-and-a-half, I found
out that I hadn't gone off the deep end. My life
was changed. I was once in a debate with the
head of the history department at a Mid western
university, and I said my life had been changed.
He interrupted me with "McDonald, are you trying
to tell us that God really changed your life in the
20th century? What areas?" After 45 minutes he
said, "OK, that's enough." Let me tell you a few of
the things I told him and the audience that day.
One area God changed was my
restlessness. I always had to be
occupied. I'd walk across the
campus and my mind was like
a whirlwind with conflicts
bouncing around the walls. I'd
sit down and try to study, but I
couldn't. A few months after I
made that decision for Christ, a kind of mental
peace developed. Don't misunderstand. I'm not
talking about the absence of conflict. What I
found in this relationship with Jesus wasn't
absence of conflict but the ability to cope with it.
I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.
Another area that started to change was my bad
temper. I used to blow my stack if somebody just
looked at me cross-eyed. I still have the scars
from almost killing a guy my first year at college.
My temper was such a part of me that I didn't try
to consciously change it. I arrived at the crisis of
losing my temper only to find it was gone! Only
once in 14 years have I exploded (and when I
blew it that time, I made up for it for about six
years!).
Positive change on hatred
There's another area of which I'm not proud. But
I mention it because a lot of people need to have
the same change in their lives, and I found the
source of change: a relationship with Jesus Christ.
That area is hatred. I had a lot of hatred in my
life. It wasn't something outwardly manifested,
but there was a kind of inward grinding. I was
ticked off with people, with things, with issues.
But I hated one man more than anyone else in
the world: my father. I hated his guts. To me he
was the town alcoholic. Everybody knew my dad
was a drunk. My friends would make jokes about
my father staggering around downtown. They
didn't think it bothered me. I was like other
people -- laughing on the outside. But let me tell
you, I was crying on the inside. There were times
I'd go out in the barn and see my mother beaten
so badly she couldn't get up, lying in the manure
behind the cows. When we had friends over, I
would take my father out, tie him up in the barn,
and park the car around the silo. We would tell
our friends he'd had to go somewhere. I don't
think anyone could have hated anyone more
than I hated my father.
After I made that decision for Christ, he entered
my life and his love was so strong that he took
the hatred and turned it upside down. I was able
to look my father squarely in the eyes and say,
"Dad, I love you." And I really meant it. After
some of the things I'd done, that shook him up.
When I transferred to a private
university I was in a serious car
accident. With my neck in
traction, I was taken home. I'll
never forget my father coming
into my room. He asked me,
"Son, how can you love a
father like me?" I said, "Dad,
six months ago I despised
you." Then I shared with my dad the conclusions
I had come to about Christ: "Dad, I let Jesus
Christ come into my life. I can't explain it
completely, but as a result of that relationship
I've found the capacity to love and accept not
only you but other people just the way they are."
Forty-five minutes later one of the greatest thrills
of my life occurred. Somebody in my own family,
someone who knew me so well I couldn't pull the
wool over his eyes, said to me, "Son, if God can
do in my life what I've seen him do in yours, then
I want to give him the opportunity." Right there
my father prayed with me and trusted Christ for
the forgiveness of his sins.
Usually the changes take place over several days,
weeks, months, or even a year. The life of my
father was changed right before my eyes. It was
as if somebody reached down and turned on a
light bulb. I've never seen such a rapid change
before or since. My father touched whiskey only
once after that. He got it as far as his lips and
that was it. I've come to one conclusion. A
relationship with Jesus Christ changes lives.
The Life change, positive change
You can laugh at Christianity. You can mock and
ridicule it. But it works. It changes lives. If you
trust Christ, start watching your attitudes and
actions because Jesus Christ is in the business of
changing lives.
But Christianity is not something you can shove
down somebody's throat. All I can do is tell you
what I've learned. After that, it's your decision.
Perhaps the prayer I prayed will help you: "Lord
Jesus, I need you. Thank you for dying on the
cross for me. Forgive me and cleanse me. Right at
this moment I trust you as Saviour and Lord. Make
me the type of person you created me to be. In
Christ's name. Amen."for more information please join us on twitter @albillsng and feel free to write or send us anything on email with
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