Have you ever wondered why a seed has to die in order for it to sprout? Or why pain is involved in the process of becoming stronger? More and more, I am convinced that we learn the most through trials and failures in life. There have been two major events in my life that challenged me in the Faith. The first was the death of my father; the second was two dark years of doubt about Christianity.
My father passed away on Monday, November 6, 2000. He was fifty-four years old. I had gone to school that morning knowing that it may be his last day. The previous evening had been a time for me to say last words to him and tell him I loved him. This was a one-sided conversation due to his vegetative state over the previous three weeks. My mother, who was a nurse, had chosen to keep him at home for his remaining days and allowed Hospice to care for him. This was not the first time anyone had bathed, changed, and carried him; my mother and I had been doing this periodically for the last ten months. During those ten months, he had a relapse of cancer from five years previous, surgery to remove a major tumor on the frontal lobe, and entered a terminal waiting period through the summer months and into the fall. I had cared for my dad ever since February of that year when he started waking up in the middle of the night and voiding in the corner of his room in Indonesia.
You see, my parents were missionaries in Indonesia. We had lived in the Da’an tribe in the middle of the island of Borneo for 15 years. My father was the evangelist and discipler of the team. When the cancer hit, I watched him enter this vegetative state and did not associate it with cancer; I only thought it was my father going crazy. I was with him when we traveled to Singapore, where his doctor told my mother to return to the US because it was terminal. I had become the man of the family as my two older brothers and one older sister were on their own in the US. I was with my father when he had surgery in Winston-Salem, and when he went through rehab. I watched him recover through the summer and digress in the fall. When I received the call at school on that Monday morning, I immediately drove the ten minutes home. He died in those ten minutes. I was 16 years old.
Fast forward to the second event. In 2004, on the streets of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I discussed at length my faith in Christianity with a disciple of Nietzsche—an atheist/agnostic. After a three-hour conversation, it was as if a switch was flicked in my mind to question everything. I had told him that I wished I thought the way he thought just so I could explain my faith in a way he would accept. As I walked away, I began to question everything. In fact, this lasted for the next two years and covered questions of the existence of truth, God, reality, myself, Biblical authority, life’s meaning and purpose, beauty, and goodness.
I was snagged as a youth intern after this and was paid to be an example of Christ before the youth. My days typically went from “faith to faith.” I would start the day and simply have to say, “God, I trust your word, even though I have many questions. Use me if you can.” I would go, live out Christ, and then come home. Once I got home, the questions set in again. I mean, I would be out running and wondering why the ground was holding me up or be typing and wonder what was keeping my fingers from going through the keyboard. They were mainly epistemological questions. When I found an answer to one question, ten more would pop up in its place. It was during this time that my boss and pastor recommending I read Ravi Zacharias’s Can Man Live Without God. As the summer wore on, I got worse and worse. In fact, my brother returned from Indonesia that summer and saw the toll these questions had taken on me. I broke down just telling him what was going on. He proceeded to encourage me and tell me I should take the time to find answers. That was meaningful to have his support.
Strangely enough, it was that summer that some of my youth went through Summit, and I went to see them graduate. I was blown away that there was a whole ministry devoted to knowing answers to all of those questions that Nietzschean asked. Thus, I logged away Bryan College as a good place to go college if I would ever return to school. I stayed on throughout the next school year, but the question did not go away. I began to lose my moral compass and delved into areas I should not. I found that my view of goodness, right, wrong, and beauty being distorted porn. Since I was doubting the very existence of God and his word, why would fleshly desires be so bad? I also slept a lot, since that was the best way to get away from the questions. It actually became sort of depressive, and life began to lose its meaning. It didn’t help that I was living on my own at the time. In time, I wanted a way to step away from the ministry, get out of leadership for a bit, and take time to study and address these issues.
The chance came when I decided to apply and was accepted to Bryan College the following spring. Once I got there, I found professors telling me that they saw struggle in my life, and that was a sign of life not death. This was one of the most encouraging things they could say, since I felt like I was dying. My life was all about Christianity up to this time of doubting, so it felt like parts of my soul were being destroyed and not used at all. If Christianity wasn’t true, life was not worth living. However, as I was embraced and discipled at Bryan, I began to see God was big enough to handle my questions. He was patient and simply waiting on me to trust him again. I also realized that there were plenty of Biblical characters who struggled against God and had big questions, from Job to Moses to David to Christ to Thomas to Paul. Sometimes God expressly answered their questions, other times he let them vent for a while then let them come around. By the end of my freshman year, I sat down to reflect upon my journey.
I realized that the doubt had begun an academic doubt and turned to volitional doubt. I had simply not known the arguments or how to think about what that guy said. Over the course of two years, it had turned to a comfortable place where I could just ask questions and never take a stand. Doubting is easy; standing on answers takes courage and trust. Thus, that spring semester I finally sat down and went over the things I then knew to be true: God, Jesus incarnate, fallen sinners, world needing redemption, etc. Call it a rededication or whatever, but I finally took a stand on the things I knew to be true. Sure, I would have questions for the rest of my life, but I can know some things. It was from that point on that Bryan served as a place to build me back in the Faith. I started to be relational again. I started reading the Bible and realized I should’ve been reading it all along. I actually got answers to philosophical questions. Before, I thought it would only give me some theological questions. Finally, I noticed that the more I talked about my questions, the more people could help. Sometimes, others had the same questions, and two minds were better than one; I wasn’t alone in this.
Remember I said I believe we learn the most through trials and failures. The death of my father and two years of faith-rattling doubt has taught me much. Granted, there have been many more areas that, but these were some of the bigger chapter headings in my life. It was from this second event that I learned to mourn the impact of the first event. Skepticism and agnosticism helped heal the wounds from the death of my father. The death of my father removed the guardian at the gates of skepticism and agnosticism. Ironically, both events have led to a more beautiful and holistic view of Christianity and life.
Those times were extremely hard. Remember Hebrew 12:11: All discipline is but for the moment. But in the end, it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Please, please, please, I beg you, don’t give up. God is a patient Father, waiting with open arm to welcome you back in his presence.
