I was raised in a Christian home by loving parents, who insisted that my older sister and I attend church and Sunday school every week unless we were deathly ill! I have to confess that I looked forward to going away to college so that I would not have to attend church on Sundays!
In college I became a professing agnostic, proud of my unbelief. My collegiate studies were in engineering, and evolution started to make more and more sense (although I never really studied the subject).
I remember seeing pictures in biology textbooks with apes becoming more upright and evolving into present-day man. Only insecure people who needed to fill a void in their lives needed to believe in an omnipresent, omnipotent Creator. However, after college I still attended church with my parents at Easter and Christmas because I knew it was important to them.
Confronted by the gospel
A friend at work (now deceased) had asked me many times to attend church with him, but I always said I wasn’t interested. Years later, on a business trip, a close friend encouraged me to attend a Christian workshop with him – and tried to help me see my need for Christ. I was polite, but never encouraged further conversation on the subject.
After an unsuccessful marriage I was divorced and met Jenn. When I met her she was practising Buddhism. We decided not to marry because it would be just a piece of paper in our eyes.
Jenn and I had been together for almost eighteen months when we were confronted with the gospel by business partners Tim and Amy Marks – a couple we had only known for about four months. This confrontation occurred during a business discussion, when Tim shared his faith in Christ with us and asked us to consider the matter. Jenn and I got up and walked out.
But weeks later, Tim called and we sat back down. Tim quickly turned the discussion back to where it had ended the first time. He asked the simple question, ‘Do you believe in evolution?’ I answered that I did.
He then asked me to explain what I knew about it. Well, that didn’t take long! I really knew nothing at all about it. Tim asked if I would be willing to watch a video on evolution and I said I would.
Video
After watching the video, all the ideas on which I had based my disbelief were demolished. I still had many unanswered questions, however, and called an old acquaintance from college, Orrin Woodward.
Tim had mentioned that Orrin had been an atheist but was now a Christian. Orrin introduced Jenn and me to Pastor Robert Dickie of Berean Baptist Church in Grand Blanc, Michigan.
He was able to answer questions that had been bouncing around in my mind for years – questions to which no one ever seemed to have viable answers. We met with Pastor Dickie several times, and discussed at length the biblical concepts of sin, justification and the sovereignty of God. He explained what it was to be justified by faith and to be covered by the righteousness of Christ.
For the first time in my life I saw my need for Jesus. My eyes were opened, my pride humbled and my heart broken. Jenn and I prayed and sought the Lord in the pastor’s office that afternoon and our lives were changed. God truly met with us there and did a work in our lives that continues to this day.
Growing in grace
Jenn and I were married. With God now in our lives, we became convicted that just living together was sinful and wanted to enter the marriage covenant. We continued to hunger for spiritual knowledge and began reading books recommended by the pastor and other Christian friends.
We went through the membership class at Berean and knew that we had found our church home. We were baptised and have continued to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today, I am training to minister God’s Word to others. What a wonderful Saviour we have, who has saved a wretch like me!
